Amazing Airmen. Ian Darling
When they weren’t attacking enemy planes, the pilots often spent time improving their skills, but even practise flying could be dangerous, as well as embarrassing. On December 2, Ogilvie was leading some pilots in his squadron when he became so preoccupied watching them that he forgot to watch where he was landing. His Spitfire overshot the runway, slid on the wet grass and went through a hedge. Ogilvie was not hurt, but the plane was almost a writeoff.
Not all of Ogilvie’s days were hectic. As 1940 came to an end, he spent time fighting more mundane battles against the cold, wet English winter. By this time, 609 Squadron had moved from Middle Wallop to the RAF base at Warmwell, which was closer to the Channel. Ogilvie’s accommodation at his new base didn’t help much with keeping him warm: He lived in a tent.
Toward the end of January 1941, Ogilvie realized he had had only one good flying day during the entire, overcast month. He sometimes wondered if he should have joined the French Foreign Legion. Ogilvie and his squadron mates had a clear strategy for defeating the miserable weather: They went to nightclubs. Occasionally, their escapades became what Ogilvie called “riotous.” The squadron, however, managed to survive.
In February, the squadron moved to the RAF base at Biggin Hill, on the south side of London. The move pleased Ogilvie. He regarded the base as the number one fighter station in Britain.
One day in March, the squadron patrolled above the Channel again. Ogilvie flew with Pilot Officer Jan Zurakowski and Pilot Officer Zbigniev Olenski. The controller warned them to watch for enemy fighters. For a while, Ogilvie didn’t see anything, but he suddenly heard something; it was Zurakowski. “Ogie! Ogie!” Zurakowski shouted into his radio. Ogilvie reacted quickly. He looked in his mirror and saw the nose of a Messerschmitt 109 behind him. He flew off, but not before the German fighter put three machine gun bullets in his port wing. One punctured the tire contained in the wing. Despite the puncture, Ogilvie landed his Spitfire safely. He felt lucky.
He also felt lucky that evening when Vivien Leigh, the actress who played Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, attended a party at the Biggin Hill base. He was thrilled to have a chance to dance with her.
During an afternoon in April, the squadron flew over Dungeness in southeast England. Four Messerschmitt 109s flew above Ogilvie and swiftly swooped down. Ogilvie fired at one and it broke away. As he fired at a second, another aircraft dove at him from the sun.
Ogilvie raised the nose of his Spitfire and fired a short burst of bullets. They all missed, which was fortunate because the aircraft was a Spitfire flown by Pilot Officer Sydney Hill, a member of 609 Squadron. Fortunately, after they landed both pilots saw the humour in what had happened.
At about noon on July 4, 1941, Ogilvie and his squadron left Biggin Hill and flew into a blue sky. They were escorting Blenheim bombers on a flight to the Lille area in France. The fighters flew ahead, behind, and on both sides of the bombers. Ogilvie was thrilled to be part of what he regarded as an “imposing spectacle.” Far below him he could see the white streaks in the Channel made by the RAF’s Air Sea Rescue launches. The bombers and their escorts flew into anti-aircraft fire when they reached Dunkirk in France, and again when they were over St. Omer, which is farther inland.
Off in the distance, Messerschmitt 109s were climbing high. They positioned themselves to attack the bombers on their way home.
The Blenheims reached the target, dropped their bombs, and headed home. German anti-aircraft guns fired at them, but were ineffective. Suddenly, about fifteen Messerschmitt 109s swooped down. Ogilvie turned to attack them. One of the 109s fired at his Spitfire, hitting it. There was a terrific noise. Ogilvie was thrown against the dashboard and blood sprayed all over the cockpit. Ogilvie felt sick. His port aileron came off. He jettisoned his canopy so that he could bail out and turned the oxygen on full to stay awake. He couldn’t believe what had happened. No one warned him. He wondered if his radio had stopped working.
Ogilvie decided to fly back to the Channel. He wanted to bail out over it and hope that a rescue boat would save him. His Spitfire, however, no longer flew smoothly. To continue flying, he had to push the control column to the right.
Suddenly everything was quiet; Ogilvie had apparently become unconscious. Through a haze he could see the propeller sticking straight up and smoke spewed from the engine. He had to get out. He let go of the control column and the Spitfire immediately flipped over, flinging him out. Ogilvie groped for his ripcord and pulled it. Then everything went black.
Back in England, a friend of Ogilvie’s, Irene Lockwood, was waiting for him. She was a Canadian from Regina who worked with the British Ministry of Information in London. Her job was to censor letters that the men in the services sent to Canada, to make sure that they contained no information that could help the enemy.
Irene, who had met Ogilvie at a nightclub the previous year, had a date with him that night. She had two tickets to the opening of the American Eagle Club, a social club in London for Americans serving with the British armed forces. Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, the famous actors, were expected to attend. Irene treasured the tickets. She had used all her clothing coupons, as well as coupons provided by relatives, to buy a suitable outfit. She was furious when Ogilvie did not meet her.
The next morning, Squadron Leader Michael Robinson phoned her. “I’m sorry to give you the news, but Keith was shot down in flames,” he said. No one saw a parachute. Robinson said Ogilvie had little chance of surviving.
Irene remembered her angry reaction when Ogilvie did not appear the previous night. She felt guilty. She wrote a letter to Ogilvie’s parents, Charles and Margaret, expressing her sorrow.
Ogilvie’s parents received a telegram on July 5 from the British Air Ministry informing them that their son was missing as a result of air operations on July 4, 1941.
Ogilvie’s parachute had opened properly, even though the other pilots in 609 Squadron had not seen it. He had landed in a field.
When he regained consciousness, he was surrounded by French citizens. They tried to help him escape, but he couldn’t move. He had been hit twice in his left arm, which was broken, and once in his shoulder. He had also lost a lot of blood.
Soon, an ambulance and German soldiers arrived. One of them spoke to Ogilvie and expressed the words he would rather not have heard: “For you, the war is over.”
The German soldiers first took Ogilvie to a hospital in Lille, and later to a hospital in Brussels, Belgium. Ogilvie spent seven months lying on a bed with his left arm in a cast that was raised above him. Maggots got into the cast, but the German doctors told him that the maggots would not harm his arm. They were right; the maggots removed dead and infected tissue, and cleaned the wound by consuming bacteria.
When Ogilvie had recovered, he went to a prison camp at Spangenberg, near Kassel, in central Germany. From there he went to Stalag Luft III, a camp run by the Luftwaffe for Allied Air Force officers. It was located at Sagan, 160 kilometres southeast of Berlin. Ogilvie lived in the camp’s north compound.
Stalag Luft III was better than most prison camps and certainly better than German concentration camps. Providing they followed the rules, the prisoners at Stalag Luft III could expect to live through the war and then go home.
After he learned that his son was missing, Charles Ogilvie went for long walks