21. Tally Ho

Some estimates placed the number of German fighters and bombers at 2,500. The RAF had roughly 650 Spitfires and Hurricanes. If England were to achieve victory in the air then these fresh-faced boys of 19 and 20 years of age would have to shoot down battle-hardened veterans of the German Luftwaffe at a ratio of 4-1. Anyone could do the math. Fighter Command would be asked to do the impossible.

Churchill said in a speech to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, after the evacuation of Dunkirk. “…. The Royal Air Force engaged the main strength of the German Air Force, and inflicted upon them losses of at least four to one….”

It was a very optimistic claim. Figures listed the RAF losses at 106 planes versus 390 for the Luftwaffe. The fact that this wasn’t true didn’t seem to concern anyone. It was a huge public relations triumph and an important morale booster. It wasn’t until after the war that it was discovered that the German losses amounted to no more than 132 planes.

Throughout the Battle of Britain the number of planes shot down on both sides would be greatly exaggerated. These inflated numbers were more often the result of confusion in the heat of battle; with several pilots claiming the same “kill”. When asked his opinion of suspiciously high kill counts, Air Marshal Hugh Dowding said, “I'm really not interested in dealing with propaganda. If we're right, they'll give up. If we're wrong, they'll be in London within a week.” Actually I don’t know for a fact that he said that. Lawrence Olivier, playing Dowding in the 1969 movie Battle of Britain said that.

Still, it would have been easy to overlook Churchill’s boasting of the RAF. Dunkirk was seen as a Naval triumph, aided by the privately owned “little ships.” It was his closing remarks in that same speech that grabbed the hearts and minds of the British (and perhaps a few Americans as well). “…. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender….”

Now the war was moving from the confines of continental Europe and was being fought in the skies above Great Britain. The average Brit was no longer an innocent observer, or a politically detached participant. You could step outside your home, look up into the sky and follow the battles being played out 20,000 feet above you. Planes crashed in your fields. Bombs, initially intended for airfields, errantly fell on your village. Everyone now had a stake in the outcome.

On August 15th Göering launched, what he told Hitler, would be the knockout blow to destroy the RAF and pave the way for the invasion of England. He sent 1,790 planes in five waves against 584 fighters for the RAF. He even gave it a name. Adlertag. (Eagle Day). That was the day that Bob Doe was first ordered into battle.

At 17:00 hours the call came in to 234 Squadron. “Scramble.” They formed up with Hurricanes from 87 Squadron and 213 Squadron. Their 20 planes were sent on a course to intercept a wave of bombers over the Channel. What they found was a combined strength of 125 German planes, including fighter escort. In their first action they were already at a 5-1 disadvantage.

F/L Ian Gleed of 87 Squadron quickly accessed the situation and the odds. In a moment of inspired lunacy, he radioed instructions to his flight. “Okay chaps… let’s go and surround them!” Though heavily outnumbered, the scrappy RAF pilots managed to break through the formation. Bob Doe found himself behind a BF110 twin-engine heavy fighter. He closed up within range and began firing his 8 machine guns. To his utter astonishment the fighter turned over and dived into the Channel. Perhaps somewhat mesmerized, he followed it down and watched it crash into the sea. As he pulled out of his dive he realized that someone was shooting at him from behind. The pursuing German over shot him. Bob Doe was able to settle in behind the 2nd plane and he shot him down too. In less than a minute he had claimed two of the three BF110s that crashed into the Channel.

The successes were not without losses. Three of the five Hurricanes from 87 Squadron that heeded the call to surround the Germans were shot down. One pilot died and another was reported missing. The third received injuries making a crash landing.

With the earlier disappearance of their C.O. and one Flight Commander, 234 Squadron was already down two men going into its first major combat.

“Two more of our people landed in France with their wheels down.” He stared deep into my soul. His gaze… I couldn’t quite place it at first…Deliberate. The pause lasted only a few beats but the implication hung in the air like an unpleasant odor. He seemed to be willing me to understand. I replayed his words in my head. “… landed in France with their wheels down.” - And then I got it. Those pilots weren’t shot down. They chose to land in France. The war for them was over. Life in a P.O.W. camp preferable to slugging it out in the air.

He punctuated the sentence. “We had four pilots went LMF: Lack of Moral Fibre we called it; in our first sortie.” He offered no other explanation nor did he editorialize.

The term “LMF” seems to have originated within the ranks of Bomber Command as a way of describing an officer or airman that refused to do one’s duty for whatever reason. It could have been a moral objection, exhaustion or saving your skin. It seems obvious that “LMF” was a proxy for “Coward”. The label might not seem particularly sensitive in this day of political correctness, when the individual’s feelings supercede those of the greater body. One good thing can be said for the term. Even though it was intended to shame and humiliate the individual it was a much kinder reputation to acquire than “Coward”. That word had legal ramifications that, in the heat of battle, that could get you killed: by firing squad. Better to forego a promotion or peel potatoes than be shot. Maybe that’s just me.

In accessing their performance Bob Doe was quite succinct some 60-odd years later when interviewed by another television crew. “We did everything wrong that we could possibly do wrong. We flew off in close formation, which is about the most stupid thing you can do... We got the same height that we were told the enemy was at, which, again, is very stupid. You want to be above them. We proceeded to troll up and down the sun which is idiotic because half the time you can’t see a thing behind you.”

For all the mistakes that were made that day, and there were many; the RAF had been bullied and bloodied, but not beaten. It was the first significant test of Hugh Dowding’s Fighter Command and they had passed. If the German insisted on coming they would be made to pay dearly.

On August 20, Winston Churchill rose in the House of Commons and paid homage to the pilots of the RAF and forever galvanized a nation.

“…. The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

The pilots had finally gotten their due. Earlier questions raised during the Battle of France were forgotten. No longer were they viewed as a swaggering cadre of elitists. These pilots were from among their own ranks and social class. They were now playing to a world stage. And with the official anointing from Churchill they had just attained “Rock Star” status. Men wanted to buy them drinks. Girls wanted to go out with them. From across the nation they had become, almost over night, “Our Boys.”

It seemed like a good place to ask one of the stupid questions I had written down when I was sitting on the balcony in La Gomera waiting for Cerstin to return from the beach. Wow. Was that yesterday? Two days ago? I was literally and historically a world away.

“How many Sorties would you fly in a day?”

“Four or Five.” He said very matter-of-factly.

I think I audibly exhaled in disbelief. “So you’d land – because of fuel, or to rearm…. What was the turn around time before you’d go up again?”

“Oh… it depends on how quick you were. You could turn around in ten minutes.”

This time I definitely audiblized. It was a cross between a laugh, a gasp and a spit-take. “I had no idea it was that quick.”

“Our ground crews were fantastic. They really were fantastic. They took more interest in what you had done than anyone did. They used to leap on the wing as you got in and help you take your straps off. They’d say, ‘How’d you get on today?’. They knew you had been in action because when you’d come back, underneath the wing, where the guns fired would be gunpowder. They used to wash it off every time so they knew if you had been in action. They were wonderful. They really were wonderful.”

I was curious about the relationship between the pilots and the airmen that made up the support team. “Did you have the same ground crew?”

“Yes, yes. An airframe fitter and an engine fitter. The rest of them were just around all of the aeroplanes.”

These were the men that made it possible for the planes to stay in the air and though they weren’t taken the Germans on head-to-head they were nonetheless just as vulnerable to attack. Perhaps more so. With the Luftwaffes’s initial emphasis on bombing airfields there were many causalities to the ground crews. There were instances throughout the war of the heroic, selfless and unheralded sacrifices made by the ground crews as they tried to save planes or pilots from imminent danger; usual resulting in their deaths.

“One I have met since, but I think they’re all dead now. I remember our Flight Sergeant was an ex-bus driver. A London bus driver.” Bob Doe smiled fondly as he reached back to recall his crew. He probably hadn’t thought about them in years but doing so now seemed to please him.

In the first letter that he sent to me, Bob Doe included a photo of him standing in front of his Spitfire; still wearing his Mae West life vest and holding his helmet. To the left of the photo, sprawled on the grass field beside him, was a dapper looking fellow in full uniform. Officer’s hat and all. It seemed a strange juxtaposition. The casual pose somehow at odds with the rank. And yet, while my eye was first drawn to that detail, there was another, more important feature to the photograph. For there, on the wing, stood Bob Doe’s ubiquitous airman; ready to assist his pilot at a moment’s notice.