For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II. Dr. Campbell-Begg Richard
next day the Squadron received orders to fly to the forward aerodrome at Martlesham Heath and to stay there for several days using 17 Squadron’s ground staff. We carried out convoy patrols. Blue section intercepted an unidentified aircraft; after a few warning shots the aircraft, a friendly Blenheim, gave the correct identification signal for the day. More convoy patrols next day, and Green section flushed out a Dornier 17 which was stalking the convoy. He put up a spirited defence with his rear guns and did some damage to our lads. He disappeared into cloud trailing some smoke. On their next convoy patrol Green section had better luck and destroyed a Dornier 215.
Another day of intensive flying followed and we had the Squadron at readiness all day from dawn till dusk with continuous precautionary patrols and convoy duties. This state of affairs was to last until 26 August when Debden was bombed, killing three airmen of 257 Squadron and damaging hangars badly and many other buildings, including the Sergeants’ Mess.
The whole Squadron was scrambled at 0830 hours at the end of the month on 31 August. In the Clacton area at 18,000 feet a formation of 50 Messerschmitt 110s was attacked and they went into defensive circles, each plane covering the next one’s tail. I attacked one ring from the reverse direction in which they were turning, which must have put the fear of God up them, and me too. One of them dropped out of the formation, smoking from both engines, and made for the coast. I pursued him out to sea, past the Dengie Flats, filling him with some final bursts, and roared back to Martlesham in a power dive of 450 miles an hour plus. In these late stages of the battle there had been little contact with the rest of the Squadron. One of our pilots was killed and another one shot down in flames. At that stage the Jerries gave Debden another drubbing, but this time there weren’t any casualties.
After two days of patrols, the Squadron was scrambled from Martlesham with orders to orbit Chelmsford. On that day my aircraft had been taken into the workshop for maintenance. I had an earlier mark Hurricane with fabric-covered wings and non-self-sealing tanks, and when the scramble came over the field telephone she wouldn’t start. The whole Squadron took off and there I was still on the ground with a dead prop, but I was determined and 5 minutes later we had her going and I took off to join the Squadron. I’d only just closed with the formation when there was a terrific concussion with coloured lights flashing all around me. In a moment the fuel tanks and the cockpit became an inferno, but I knew I had to get out quick and I reached up to open my hood but it had jammed tight. I struggled and, putting my feet up on the instrument panel, chopped it open with an air axe and ripped off my safety harness and helmet and jumped. I should say that my father’s war effort was the production of this air axe and the ARP axe, and they were insulated to withstand a high voltage. One of them saved my life on that occasion.
I pulled the ripcord without delay and felt the satisfying jerk as the canopy opened. Everything went quiet, save for a gentle flutter from the parachute. The Squadron droned away into the distance. It took me about half an hour to come down. As I floated closer, I could hear cars, people shouting, “There he goes.” I came down in a Brigadier Brazier Craig’s garden in Stock near Chelmsford, narrowly missing a glasshouse of grapevines by bumping into a tree trunk on the way down. There I sat on the ground with sheets of skin hanging and flapping around me and all my sleeves and trouser legs burned off, just my rank stripes hanging limply from my wrists.
My plane had crashed into a railway embankment near Margaretting and was burning fiercely and ammunition was exploding. Onlookers held up my parachute to shield me from the bright sun – I couldn’t find a comfortable position to be in. Under my instructions they managed to remove my parachute harness and my Mae West lifejacket with the Croix de Guerre painted on it.
I was told an ambulance was on its way. I said, well, I couldn’t get under the anaesthetic quick enough. I must have had morphine. When the ambulance came they arrived in such a hurry that they knocked the gatepost down. By that time I was in the Brigadier’s living room on the sofa, offered brandy and all I wanted was water. I remembered no more until I woke up in a hospital bed after a cleaning-up operation. I was covered from head to foot with a dye called Kelly’s Blue. My arms were soaked for hours at a time in a saline solution to soften up the bandages. My wife, she spent almost all her time by my side, but I was pretty low and miserable.
After some weeks Archie McIndoe called in to see me and asked if I’d like a transfer to Queen Victoria Cottage Hospital. I placed myself in his hands and I was transferred and admitted to the Kindersley Ward under the care of Sister Hall. After a day or two I was moved out on to the balcony and joined by other charred pilots, Richard Hillary, Tony Tollemache, Geoff Page, Ian McPhail, Geoff Noble, Roy Lane and Smith Barry. We soon took over the ward, which had been geriatric.
Archie fitted me out with new nose and eyebrows, new eyelids, upper and lower, during which time I had plaster casts over my eyes and wandered about the ward on dead reckoning, reinforced by directions from all sides. I had Tiersch and pinch grafts and during the course of the operations it was also discovered that I had some cannon shell fragments in my right shoulder, which until then, when extracted, had not wanted to heal up. Archie’s new saline bath treatment helped to heal the third degree burns on my arms and legs and by Christmas 1940 I was allowed out, after much pleading to go home on leave. I must have been in and out of Queen Victoria Cottage Hospital for six months between ops, but I was fortunate compared to many.
Archie came to see me before the ops and showed me photographs of myself before the burns and said, “How would you like it?”
I replied, “That’s all right, but I might have the nose a bit bigger.”
Archie would do his rounds of the wards accompanied by his team and as soon as he entered the ward it was rather like a visit by Royalty. The general tone went up straight away accompanied by smiles and laughter; indeed it was as good as a tonic.
The Guinea Pig Club was started almost as a joke when one of the patients was heard to observe that we were being treated like guinea pigs to improve Archie’s technique. The reply came back smartly,“ Good name for a club, old boy.” This was the start of the club and Archie was the obvious choice for Chief Guinea Pig.’
The perspective of the air-gunner in fighter squadron aircraft in the battle is conveyed by James Walker, who joined the RNZAF and was seconded to the RAF. He arrived in Britain in May 1940 where he qualified as an air-gunner with the rank of Sergeant:
‘I was posted to City of London Auxiliary Squadron 600, which was stationed at Manston. I arrived there in the middle of an air raid and I witnessed combat between a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt 109, which the Spitfire got the better of, and the Messerschmitt 109 crashed in front of our eyes as we were driving along to the Station, so that was our baptism of fire, as it were. Arriving at 600 Squadron I was met and introduced and I was the only New Zealander there, which was quite a novelty to them, and I was treated rather well and everybody was very friendly. I had my first flight in a Bristol Blenheim, a training flight, and I think the second day or the third day there we really experienced the might of the German Air Force. We were having lunch in the Sergeants’ Mess when the bombing raid took place, which was so unexpected; we had no warning whatsoever, and I remember a concerted dive under the tables. The peacetime Warrant Officers, who at that time had rather looked down on us as jumped-up sergeants without any experience, they were all levelled to the same grade under these tables and it was quite amusing to see these Warrant Officers and us jumped-up sergeants in the same situation.
James Ian Bradley Walker
So, after that more precautions were taken and the air raid sirens became more operational and we did get some warning in the future raids. The first raid they concentrated on the hangars and there was major damage. How many planes were lost I do not remember, but I know that there was quite substantial damage done. The runways were put out of action but were quickly re-instated, the holes being filled up. That was the first raid that Manston had experienced and was the start of many.
We at that time were a night fighter squadron and we were engaged in defensive operations mostly over Southern England, London especially, as London then became the target, the main target for the