WATCH YOUR SIX
It was Oberleutnant Gerhard Schoepfel's lucky day. Soon after he had passed the coast, with the other Messerschmitts of his Gruppe spread out in a wide hunting formation behind him, he caught sight of the enemy. "Suddenly I noticed a Staffel of Hurricanes underneath me. They were using the English tactics of the period, flying in close formation of threes, climbing in a wide spiral," he afterwards wrote. It was No 501 Squadron, moving towards Canterbury and gaining altitude. Schoepfel beckoned to his pilots to remain above and give him cover while he went down, taking care to keep himself between his quarry and the sun. Under such circumstances a single aircraft might achieve surprise while several were almost certain to be seen. Like a cat stalking a bird Schoepfel waited until the Hurricane formation was moving away from him, then he pounced. With a couple of accurate bursts Schoepfel dispatched both Hurricanes weaving above the formation. Then he darted in to attack the formation itself. He fired one short burst into the Hurricane at the rear and it too went down in flames. "The Englishmen carried on, having noticed nothing. So I pulled in behind the fourth machine and took care of him also, but this time I went in too close," Schoepfel continued. Pieces of wreckage smashed into the Messerschmitt's propeller and oil spattered over his windscreen and down the sides of the cabin, leaving him unable to see a thing. Well satisfied with his work Schoepfel swung round his Messerschmitt and dived away from the action.
Profiting from the failings of the tight-combat formation still in use in many Fighter Command squadrons, Schoepfel had been able to knock down four Hurricanes in two minutes, killing one pilot and wounding three others.
HEAD ON ATTACK
Crossley called "Tally Ho!" to inform his ground controller that he had the enemy in sight and was going to engage. The two formations were closing at 400 mph, nearly seven miles a minute. Several times Crossley had discussed with his pilots the advantages of a head on attack as a method of breaking up an enemy bomber formation. He was sure that for the German crews, sitting unprotected in their glass fronted bombers, this type of attack would be most fearful of all; only those bomber pilots with nerves of steel would fail to be daunted by such a prospect, and those who broke formation could be picked off later. Crossley fired at one of the Dorniers and saw it pull upwards abruptly. As he came out of the other side of the German formation he turned his head and saw the Dornier he had fired at pull up into a drunken half roll, then spin away. At the controls of his victim was Oberleutnant Werner Stoldt, leading the 1st Staffel. The fighter's rounds had slashed through the windscreen, reducing the cockpit of the bomber to a bloody shambles in a fraction of a second.
Crossley's head on charge into Bomber Geschwader 76 had knocked down one Dornier and caused damage to several others. More importantly, it forced many of the German crews to jink out of the way of the fighters during the critical phase of their bombing runs. These crews found themselves unable to re-align themselves, and had to pick out alternative targets on the ground.
AREN'T YOU GLAD IT'S ONLY A GAME?
19 years old Sergeant Harry Newton had become seperated from the rest of 111 Squadron, and was orbiting to the east of Kenley at 3,000 feet. Then he caught sight of a Dornier low down. The Dornier was limping away from Kenley with one engine shot out. Newton slid back his cockpit hood, so that it could not jam shut and trap him inside if it was hit, then pushed down his nose and swooped in to attack. The rear gunner, Unteroffizier Franz Bergmann, had seen the Hurricane curving after him and swung his machine gun to engage. Newton saw the tracer rounds coming towards him but thought "you've got one gun, I've got eight - you don't stand a chance!" He fired one burst at the Dornier but the tracer seemed to go over the starboard wing tip. Newton continued, "I thought "Just a slight correction and I've got him!" But just at that moment he got me, because my cockpit seemed to burst into flames." With his hood open, the slipstream drew the flames backwards and upwards, right over the unfortunate pilot. Then the oxygen in his mask caught fire, burning it on to his face. "Strangely I do not remember feeling any heat though I suppose I must have since my face was pretty badly burnt. I closed my eyes tightly. But I was so annoyed at the thought of that Dornier getting away that I put my hand back into the flames, groped for the stick, made my correction and then loosed off a long burst in the direction of where I thought the Dornier was." Then Newton pulled his Hurricane into a climb, to gain height so that he could bale out. On the way up he could feel the flames all around him. They burnt through the three pairs of gloves he was wearing, through his flying suit and his trousers. As he felt the Hurricane going up he undid his seat straps and stood on his seat, braced against the canopy rather like a jockey, still with his eyes shut. The Hurricane got slower and slower then, suddenly the engine cut. Newton kicked the stick forward, at the same time throwing himself to the left and pulling the ripcord. "At that moment I opened my eyes, in time to see the tail of my Hurricane flash past my right ear, about a foot away. The next thing I knew the parachute had opened and the ground was coming up to meet me." During the descent one of his boots fell off, the laces burnt away. He made a perfect landing near Tatsfield Beacon in Surrey. About 50 yards away lay a burning heap of wreckage which, less than a minute earlier, had been a perfectly serviceable Hurricane.
I SAY OLD CHAP
Kenneth Lee parachuted to earth near Whitstable, he was helped over to a golf clubhouse nearby, where they took him into the bar and
bought him a drink. "There I stood at the bar, wearing a Mae West, no jacket, and beginning to leak blood from my torn flying boot. None of
the golfers took any notice of me - after all, I wasn't a member," he remembered. "Outside we could hear the battle still going on, with the roar of aircraft engines and the sounds of machine-gun fire. I remember one of the golfers coming into the clubhouse and indignantly exclaiming: "That burst of machine-gun fire when we were on the 5th made me miss my bloody putt, old chap!" They were far more concerned about their individual games of golf, than the battle going on overhead."
ON A WING AND A PRAYER
Streaming blood from his head wound, Guenther Meyer-Bothling brought his Stuka across the Channel with a dead radio operator, scarcely any instruments, his trim controls and part of the rudder shot away, no compass, his cabin awash with engine oil and two 110-pound bombs jammed under his port wing. His battered Jumo engine kept going until he reached the French coast then, as though it felt it had done its duty, finally seized up. Gliding down to land on the beach he tried to lower his flaps, but these refused to budge. Instead he kicked on what was left of the rudder to push the crippled dive-bomber into a side-slip, to ease off some of his speed. As the aircraft hit the sand the legs of the fixed undercarriage, cut to pieces by the machine gun bullets, broke away and the Stuka slid along on its belly. Some infantrymen who had been bathing in the sea came running towards him, then stopped in their tracks as they noticed the bombs under the wing. Only after Meyer-Bothling's shouted assurance that the bombs were safe did they clamber on to the wing and help him out of the cockpit. Later ground crewmen counted a total of 160 hits on the dive-bomber.
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