For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II. Dr. Campbell-Begg Richard
the Channel and the fires identified their target for them. We had very little success, in fact no success in tracking the German bombers, although we had the earliest form of radar, which was operating quite well, but we found that because the German bombers were faster than we were, we had no chance of making contact because they were dropping their bombs and then hightailing it back to the Continent.
But then we received Beaufighters. Beaufighters had an improved radar on them and some success was achieved. I did not experience any success, although we made contact but we were unable to gain sufficient closeness of range to open fire at any time. From then on the raids increased on our own aerodrome. One air raid shelter was hit with great loss of life, including WAAFs, English girls; quite a number of them were killed and we spent quite a lot of time in the air raid shelters.
Then on one occasion I was dining, lunch I think it was, in the mess and we were called to immediate readiness and we had to travel quite a distance. I had by that time obtained a bicycle and I rode this bicycle across the aerodrome at the time when, I think it was three Messerschmitt 110s were dive-bombing the aerodrome. However, I managed to arrive at the readiness point but the aerodrome had been damaged so much that no one was able to take off. Fortunately one of the Messerschmitt 110s was brought down by ground fire and that was a rather horrific sight because it crashed in the vicinity of one of the hangars and the crew were all killed. That evening, when we were taking off for a patrol, as we were driving out to our aircraft the cranes were removing the 110 and the dead bodies were very apparent, and we at that time found that rather traumatic, seeing these bodies.
We took off on our patrol. We patrolled the London area with the fires so bad in London that it was hard to believe that the city could survive. We maintained these patrols night after night and also enduring the many air raids on Manston aerodrome, which eventually became so bad – the aerodrome was damaged so badly, the hangars, the runways were put out of action – that it was decided to evacuate Manston completely.
We moved then inland to Redhill, Hornchurch and various other stations, which we operated on for the remainder of the Battle of Britain.’
Norman Ramsay joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and, when war broke out, qualified as a pilot and was posted to his first squadron as a Sergeant Pilot converting directly from Harvards to Spitfires:
‘Here I was given a couple of rides in a Master in the back seat, which is about the same angle as the Spit coming in to land because the slower you get the higher the nose gets – you can’t see forward, you’ve got to look out forward and to the side. I got the general idea and I was pushed in a Spitfire and took off. In those days we had to pump the undercarriage up, and the elevator controls were very, very sensitive, so you had to change hands, take your hand off the throttle to hold the joystick in your left hand and pump with your right hand. It was very difficult not to pump and equally weave up and down in the sky with the stick; as you were pumping forward you tended to move the stick forward at the same time. However, I eventually got it all together in the air and when I turned round and went back, it had taken me so long I couldn’t even see the airfield. So I flew back on a reciprocal and found it and after, I think, I made one approach and overshot and then came in and landed, that was it.
Norman Hugh Donald Ramsay
After that they took me for a bit of formation flying and that sort of thing, and then one day they said, “Well, we’re thinking of going over to France this afternoon.” By this time of course Dunkirk was over and we were isolated. “Pop over there, Ramsay, and go and see what the weather’s like over there.”
So I took off and I wasn’t at all keen on it, I can tell you; it seemed rather a lonely affair going across the Channel on your own and not knowing what to expect when you got to the other side. Anyway, I crossed over to France and nobody shot at me; obviously I couldn’t fly very high else I would have been shot at, but I was fairly low and I had a look around and I could see that it was fairly clear so I didn’t go as far as I was supposed to go, but I just turned round and came back. Nipped back across. I was very pleased when I crossed over the coast again, being on my own, and of course I couldn’t see England, just set a northerly heading and eventually it turned up and I recognised where I was and I got back to the Squadron.
So that afternoon I had my first sweep over France, which I was quite interested to see, you know, the fields and colours and all this sort of stuff. That was my introduction there and then, of course, that stopped very quickly, because then they started to come in over England and we were kept mainly confined to fighting over England and over the Channel. I remember once, when we climbed out over the Channel, it was a hazy day, lovely, it was sort of a marvellous summer that year – a lovely hazy sunny day, and there was a bit of cloud about and we were climbing up over the Channel and I looked behind. We flew in a section of three in those days, and looking back when we were out in battle formation, which is flying out and wider so you’re not in close formation, I saw three aircraft and I thought, oh good, they must have scrambled another section.
The next time I looked behind there was a great big Iron Cross on a 109 and I knew instantly that I had one right behind me, so I rammed the stick hard fully forward and hard over to the left, and I just about started to move downwards when there was a huge bang and I’d been hit. The shell went into the engine and glycol streamed back and I was way out over the sea. I thought, my God if I catch fire, which mostly you did; fortunately I didn’t, and I got into a huge spiral going down and eventually looked back and could see I wasn’t being followed, so straightened up. I couldn’t make out which coast I could see in the distance was England, so I thought, well, there’s nothing for it, the next coast that comes round I’m going towards that – if it happens to be France, well, I’m a prisoner and that’s it. As it so happened it turned out I was east of Dover – I recognised it and it was pure luck. The reason why I had to do this was because the compass was spinning and I couldn’t see the sun to get a bearing of which way to fly, north or south. Anyway I was lucky, it was England, and I glided in and I realised I was east of Dover – we’d taken off from Hawkinge near Dover. I glided back and was going to do a wheels-up landing, but then I suddenly realised I had plenty of height and was quite all right, so selected wheels down and blew them down and locked them. I hadn’t time to pump them down so used the emergency air bottle and landed and taxied in. I went down after I’d turned and taxied and just swung off the grass field – it was a grass field, had no runways – and climbed out of the aircraft and went to Air Traffic Control to go and report in, which I did. Walked back and then eventually I met the CO, who came up and said, “I’ve been looking for you, I’ve been searching for you down in the water. Number Three went down in flames.”
That was that, so we went back and had a look at my aeroplane and he said, “Well, we’ll have to wait here and I’ll get somebody to come and pick you up and bring you back to Biggin Hill,” which is where we were stationed then. Eventually a Blenheim came and I went off, had a look at my aircraft on the ground – which you’ll probably be interested to know is AB910, which is flying today and is preserved by the Battle of Britain Memorial Society.
So we had interesting times there, scrambles and stuff like that, and the most scrambles – take-offs to go and meet incoming enemy – was seven in one day. Then you get a bit tired after a while, even if you are only 20. You didn’t know anything else, there wasn’t anything to compare it with, so it was a way of life, it was just accepted and that’s all there was to it. There was no sort of bravery or stuff like this or stiff upper lip and that stuff – that was the way it was. It was a learning period and a fairly steep learning curve because if you didn’t, you didn’t live and that was quite simple. You didn’t realise, of course, it was that sort of thing, because as I say, and I can’t emphasise enough, if you’d never experienced anything like it before you just carry on. People come and go and that’s it. My first Squadron, which was 610, we lost a lot of people in fairly quick time; they were all experienced flyers, they were Royal Auxiliary Air Force characters, having been flying in their spare time for some years.
When, at last, we were pulled out of that scene, and as the casualties came in, I went to join 222 at Hornchurch.