Amazing Airmen. Ian Darling
and Daddo-Langlois did not want to be left behind — they wanted to participate in the attack. Daddo-Langlois told officers at the Takali base that he and Middlemiss wanted to get their Spitfires into the air. The officers relayed the information to the control centre. After several minutes, the controller agreed. He let the two pilots take off.
Middlemiss was already wearing his Mae West life preserver. All he had to do was step on the port wing of his Spitfire and climb into the cockpit. He put on his helmet and mask, and snapped on his parachute and uninflated dinghy. He taxied the Spitfire out of the sandbagged enclosure where it was kept when not in use.
Daddo-Langlois and Middlemiss flew south, in an attempt to gain altitude before confronting the German planes. The two pilots had time to turn northward, but they did not have time to climb to their maximum altitude before they spotted Messerschmitt 109 fighters escorting Junkers Ju 88 bombers. Daddo-Langlois and Middlemiss also didn’t have time to position themselves so that the sun was behind them; the German pilots could already see them.
“Shall we have a go?” Daddo-Langlois asked over his radio. Middlemiss said they should attack the German planes. Daddo-Langlois fired at a bomber and hit it. Middlemiss noticed that one of the 109s was close to the tail of Daddo-Langlois’ Spitfire. Middlemiss fired machine-gun bullets and cannon shells at the fighter. The 109 exploded.
Middlemiss wanted to get away as quickly as possible because he suspected that the pilot of the fighter he shot down might have been paired with another pilot. He turned his Spitfire left to break away, but he was too late. As Middlemiss leaned forward and looked to his left, the pilot of another 109 fired at his plane. At least one shell hit the starboard side of his Spitfire’s fuselage.
Either a shell, or a piece of the aircraft hit by the shell, flew into the cockpit, striking the muscles in Middlemiss’s back and right arm. That was the arm he used to adjust the control column, which moved the plane’s ailerons.
Although he didn’t feel any pain, he knew he had to get out of the aircraft. The Spitfire started spinning to the left. He didn’t even have time to send a Mayday message. Middlemiss tried to bail out, but he was pinned inside the plane by the centrifugal forces produced by the spin. Before he could get out he had to stop the spin. To do that, Middlemiss used his left hand to push the control column forward and his right foot to turn the starboard rudder.
He stopped the spin, pulled the small rubber ball above him to jettison the cockpit canopy, rolled the plane over, and fell out.
Middlemiss managed to pull his ripcord, probably with his left hand. His descent to Earth was quiet and gentle. The thought of going into the Mediterranean Sea did not overly concern him. He felt thankful that his parachute had opened. He would deal with the sea when he had to.
As he came down, Middlemiss remembered from his training that parachutists have trouble judging their distance from the water. He needed to know the distance because he wanted to release his parachute just before he entered the water. If he didn’t release the chute, the wind could drag him along the sea and prevent him from inflating his dinghy. To get a better idea of the distance, he dropped one of his flying boots. The boot took some time to reach the surface, so he knew he was not ready to release his parachute.
He descended further, and released his chute as he hit the water. Once he was in the water, Middlemiss inflated his Mae West life jacket with a small bottle of carbon dioxide. It kept him afloat.
He had only one thought: to get into his dinghy. First he had to inflate it — he found the canister of carbon dioxide for that purpose, pulled a pin, and turned the handle slowly. Nothing happened. No carbon dioxide flowed to inflate the dinghy. He turned the lever the other way and, again, nothing happened.
In addition to the canister, Middlemiss had a small hand pump that was attached to the dinghy by a cord. He decided to use it. As he tried to connect the pump to the valve, the cord got in his way. He pulled out a hunting knife from inside his life jacket and cut the cord. The pump was free. Then, with his left hand, he twisted the pump onto the valve. Gradually, he was able to inflate the dinghy and climbed in.
When he was in the dinghy, Middlemiss felt relief. The sea was calm, so his chances of surviving for a while were reasonably good, but he did wonder whether sharks would find him before his squadron did. Just in case any sharks did approach, he had a packet of shark repellent in his rescue kit.
Middlemiss’s squadron sent several Spitfires to look for him. However, the pilots searched the wrong part of the Mediterranean. The squadron thought he was northwest of Malta, but he was northeast of the island.
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