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  The deaths of Allen and Way in quick succession, on 24 and 25 July respectively, hit Gray and the squadron hard. Both men were accomplished pilots and widely regarded as leaders. Allen was a quiet, religious man and at first glance seemed a little out place in the ‘bloodthirsty atmosphere’ prevailing the squadron—he was often found with his nose in his bible in squadron downtime—but his bravery and ability behind the controls of a Spitfire were undeniable. On 24 July, the DFC recipient’s engine was damaged in a dogfight over the Thames Estuary. He was seen gliding to Margate when the engine kicked into life, only to fail again: his machine stalled and the twenty-two-year-old was killed on impact. ‘With eight enemy aircraft destroyed to his credit, and many others probably destroyed and damaged, Johnny had at last been struck down,’ wrote Deere, ‘a tragedy for the squadron and a sad day for his family and many friends.’[10] When ‘Wonky’ Way was killed, the morale of the squadron pilots sunk to a new low. Some pilots were particularly embittered by the loss of such good pilots and friends, who were not outfought but outnumbered.[11]

  Each man dealt with the death of fellow airman on his own terms, but there was a general tendency towards a ‘nonchalance and a touch of manufactured, protective heartlessness’.[12] Few pilots at the time or afterwards were willing to dwell on the loss of so many friends and colleagues. ‘At the end of the day we went off to the village pub or the mess and had a few drinks’ and thought briefly about those absent from the gathering, recalled Keith Lawrence of Invercargill, but in the end ‘it was just part of the job ... you didn’t seem to dwell on it’.[13]

  Many airmen often took the view, as expressed in an epitaph for one pilot, ‘that it is better to forget and smile than to remember and be sad’.[14] ‘The death of a friend,’ wrote one pilot, ‘provided food for a few moments of thought, before the next swirling dogfight began to distract the ... mind from the stupid thoughts of sadness or pity ... the art was to cheat the Reaper and perhaps blunt his scythe a little.’[15]

  Those that remained in 54 Squadron were now physically and emotionally spread thin. The squadron had flown more sorties than any other and was reaching its operational limits. Over the month of July, Gray had notched up a remarkable sixty-eight sorties. Orders from Dowding had the squadron sent north to Catterick for a break.

  Leave was a vital component in maintaining the fighting abilities of the squadron. Time away from the battlefield enabled pilots to forget the horrors of the war in the air. For many pilots there was plenty to see and do. As Lawrence noted, ‘All these English towns were lovely places to look around and at the history, the buildings, it was so unlike New Zealand.’[16] Many pilots had relatives, while other stayed on large estates opened to the pilots in order to get them away from the battlefield. Paterson was able to get away from the front lines to an earl’s estate in Scotland and spent much of his time hiking and hunting. He was in his element and bagged three stags.[17] Gard’ner, before his mauling during the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ had taken a shine to ice skating, which he picked up while stationed in Scotland. The Canadians in the squadron played in a local ice hockey league and, by his own confession ‘not much of pub crawler’, the young New Zealander spent much of his time watching and learning from Canadian speedsters.[18] While Gard’ner and others found diversions in the picturesque countryside, many more gravitated to the hedonistic pleasures of British towns and cities.

  Blowing off Steam

  Most Anzacs in the Second World War fought their battles far from the comforts of home, but the Battle of Britain fighter boys engaged the enemy over ‘home soil’, with some of Britain’s best pubs, nightclubs and theatres close at hand. An arduous operation could be swiftly followed by one of the pilots’ favourite pastimes: the consumption of alcohol. Therefore, the first port of call was often the officer’s mess, located either on the base, or sometimes off-base, in a requisitioned manor house or some such venue. Sofas, chairs and the bar were the essential furnishings. Roving beyond the confines of the airfield, the Anzacs became accustomed to the beer, a ‘tangy sudsy bitter’, common to the pubs of England.[19] Strenuous efforts were made to hit the local tavern before closing, even after the most arduous of flights. On a good day, clasping a favourite pewter tankard, pilots discussed the day’s sorties, or alternately joined in the banter with the locals; on a bad day a more sombre mood prevailed, accompanied by a toast in honour of the departed. Local pubs were often adopted by squadrons. The White Hart tavern near Biggin Hill was the favourite off-base watering-hole for Kinder and his fellow pilots and the scene of many a jest and long evening of drinking.[20] In general the airmen were well received, especially as the Battle of Britain became increasingly punishing in August and September.

  The proximity to London drew pilots like a moth to a flame. For those based close enough to travel into London, it was the Tivoli bar not far from the respective New Zealand and Australia Houses situated in the Strand. One New Zealander who was used to making such regular forays was the North Weald-based Irving ‘Black’ Smith of 151 Squadron. On one occasion, later in the campaign, the Invercargill-born pilot’s efforts to reach the bar looked doomed to fail when his quarters were bombed. Lacking kit, he was hastily transferred to North Weald’s satellite field at Stapleford, Tawney. With circumstances conspiring to prevent his attendance at the night’s planned festivities, he left a message at the Tivoli informing his friends that he would not make it there.

  Upon arriving at Stapleford he discovered a late train that would get him into the city after all. Exhausted but undeterred, he bought a ticket. His appearance was something of a surprise to his friends, who had misinterpreted the message to mean that the young New Zealander had been killed and he discovered them in the middle of a solemn wake in his honour. ‘My message was garbled. They all thought I’d been shot down and was dead,’ an abashed Smith admitted. ‘After that there was a great thrash.’[21]

  Paterson also made the trip into London on many occasions and relished the opportunity to catch up with New Zealanders over a few pints and hear news of events back home. As he soon discovered though, young Anzacs looking to release some tension could run amuck. On one occasion he met a West Coaster who, though terribly drunk, insisted that Paterson show him the town. In the end he was able to locate a group of New Zealanders in a favourite watering hole and detach himself from the inebriated airman. ‘Taking the opportunity [I] slipped out before they broke up the place, it was heading that way when I left,’ wrote Paterson to his parents.[22]

  As a general rule the behaviour of pilots was determined by the tenor set by the squadron commander. Fifty-four Squadron was led by Squadron Leader James ‘Prof’ Leathart, a highly competent and well-regarded airman who took a middle-of-the-road approach. Consequently, he recognised the need for pilots to let their hair down but was concerned that airmen were at the top of their game when the enemy came calling. Stories of pilots drinking heavily into the small hours were not commonplace within the squadron during periods of intensive fighting. For their part, the New Zealanders Deere and Gray had seen enough action and the loss of too many comrades to take lightly the impact of unchecked carousing on the ability of airmen to meet the enemy in the blue arena. Other airmen were less circumspect, and at least one New Zealand pilot from another squadron was rumoured lost after an alcohol-sodden night on the town.

  An object lesson in extremes was provided by 74 ‘Tiger’ and 92 ‘East India’ Squadrons, which for a season were based at Biggin Hill, Kent. Over the course of the battle the squadrons included seven New Zealanders and one Australian. Seventy-four Squadron was kept on a fairly tight leash by their mercurial leader, the South African Adolph ‘Sailor’ Malan, while 92 Squadron operating under the motto ‘fight-or-die’ and cobra insignia was a much less regulated unit. One member of the East India Squadron summed up the differences well when he noted in his post-war memoirs that ‘74 were fresh compared to us, and started shooting down Huns, right left and centre ... They were all red hot shots
, and the squadron the complete antithesis of 92. They did not indulge themselves in large cars, night clubs or fancy dress.’ Malan, a stickler for discipline, dissuaded contact with 92 Squadron, which he considered a ‘bunch of playboys’.[23]

  The 92 boys reconfigured their lives in the light of the death of a number of their colleagues who, in the early stages of war, had abandoned their booze and cigarette-infused late nights for a more monastic life in order to better face the demands of the battle at hand. Unfortunately a number of these were killed early in the battle. This only fuelled a more cavalier, hedonistic attitude among the survivors. The squadron became notorious for its pilots’ disregard for rank outside the confines of the unit and its larrikinism. Kinder transferred into the unit late in the campaign and noted that they ‘were a rough lot. No ties were worn in those days; instead we tied our girlfriends’ silk stockings round our necks, stuck our map and revolver in our flying boots and left the top brass button undone on jackets ... We would go to the local after a really hectic fight and get drunk in the gear just to relieve the build-up of tension.’[24] Concerned with the unit’s behaviour, the RAF commissioned a team of psychologists to examine the squadron. The experts concluded that the ‘fight hard, play hard’ attitude permeating the unit could remain as long as they continued to get results.[25] Meanwhile in 74 Squadron, Malan made sure his young men were tucked up in bed by 10.00p.m. Many of the lads in 92 joked that Malan was keeping the boys in line ‘at the point of a pistol’.[26]

  Not that the 74 Squadron pilots were saints, as one incident in October highlighted. On a week’s leave from the heavily bombed Biggin Hill, the squadron, which included Spurdle and fellow New Zealander Edward Churches, eased the stress levels with a little pheasant shooting. Loaded into a couple of station wagons, provided to ferry the airmen from their off-base house to the airfield, the pilots headed to a local spot seen to be well supplied with pheasants in a flyover only days before. Armed with 12-bore shotguns, they killed a handful of the birds, which were clearly in an enclosure. The pilot, who had cleared the fence to collect the ‘downed’ birds, was caught by the gamekeeper, much to the amusement of the other pilots leaning on the fence elbowing each other. The resolute gamekeeper enquired if the pilot, with dead pheasants in hand, knew upon whose land he had been poaching. ‘No, but I’m sure he’s wealthy enough to have a gamekeeper and a pen like this.’

  ‘His name,’ the gamekeeper replied curtly, ‘is Winston Churchill. So I’ll be having your name!’

  The other pilots yelled out to the gamekeeper that the man before him was in fact the ‘Archbishop of Canterbury’, and they ran to the cars and made their escape. The birds were cooked and consumed at a local pub.[27]

  On rare occasions the entertainment came to the Anzacs at their respective bases. In August the Hornchurch field was visited by the famous Windmill Girls, named after their stage home, the Windmill Theatre, London. News of their upcoming performance was widely circulated and anticipated. The risqué revue was famous for its glamorous semi-nude women. The theatre’s revealing productions circumvented the censor’s condemnation by presenting the nudes as living statues with the understanding that ‘if you move it’s rude’. Patronage in London was high and the show noteworthy for operating continuously throughout the war, even during the Blitz, under the motto ‘We Never Close’—regularly transmogrified to ‘We’re Never Clothed’ by local comedians.

  The two New Zealanders on base—Deere and Gray—were keen as mustard to attend. The show was an unsurprising success and in short order was followed by a party in the officers’ mess, where ‘there was much competition from the younger fry for a dance with the girls.’[28] After the squadron’s heavy losses and the demands of daily combat, Deere concluded that:

  The evening’s performance certainly proved a most welcome and delightful interlude, and the party afterwards no less entertaining. I was agreeably surprised to find that the famous Windmill girls were so young and unspoilt. Furthermore, they were such gay companions and were, without exception, dedicated troopers working their way up through the ranks of the theatrical world. So far as we were concerned they could come again...[29]

  The party did not break until 2.30a.m. The pilots would only have a few hours’ blissful sleep before they entered the final throw of the Kanalkampf.

  Accidents

  Inclement weather restricted enemy initiatives over the following two weeks, but it did not stop deaths among RAF pilots. What is not often realised regarding the Battle of Britain, or any air campaign in the Second World War for that matter, is that aviation accidents were a significant factor in the loss of men and machines. In the four weeks of the Kanalkampf, Fighter Command had 336 aircraft either completely destroyed or significantly damaged. Of these, one-third were as a result of mishap, not enemy action.[30] The causes ranged from Polish airmen—who were accustomed to flying aircraft without retractable undercarriage—failing to put their landing gear down, to pilots attempting to fly in poor weather. The biggest loss of life occurred during night flying, with mechanical failure the second biggest culprit.

  Upon awaking on 6 August, Olive was relieved to see cloud cover and drizzle. The inclement weather offered the opportunity to get some much-needed shut-eye. The entire 65 Squadron was exhausted, with reports of pilots falling asleep in flight and at the controls of recently landed aircraft. Small nightly nuisance raids only increased weariness, something Squadron Leader Henry Sawyer, one of Olive’s best friends, was only too well aware of. To the consternation of the pilots, who had almost no night-flying hours, they were often woken to take off in an attempt at an interception, an almost impossible task. This meant that pilots like Olive took turns bedding down at night fully dressed in a caravan near the Spitfires.

  On Olive’s allotted night he was awoken in the early hours of the morning to the roar of a Spitfire taking off and he contacted the controller to find out what was going on. ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ he heard from the other end of the telephone, ‘Squadron Leader Sawyer said you hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep for weeks and that if there was a “scramble” he would take your turn.’[31] A moment later the Queenslander heard the din of the Spitfire’s 12-cylinder motor abruptly extinguished in an explosion. With sinking heart, he peered through the caravan window at the fierce glow lighting up the countryside a mile distant. Olive arrived at the scene to find fire and ambulance personnel extracting the dead body of his friend from the wreckage. The Anzac was ‘violently sick’. Ashen-faced, he made his way back to the flight caravan, only to be informed by the controller that ‘it wasn’t a raider after all, so you can go back to bed’.

  ‘To bed, yes, but not to sleep,’ Olive wrote later. ‘Poor Sawyer, trying to do me a kindness and let me sleep a little longer, had paid for it with his life. He had a beautiful wife and two little children—oh! The tragedy of war.’[32]

  It is possible that Sawyer had been blinded by the incandescent exhaust flames and became disoriented, an all-too-common experience on particularly dark nights for pilots unaccustomed to night-flying a Spitfire. Alternatively, he may not have been concentrating on his instruments, another recurrent mistake that usually had fatal consequences during night flights.

  Olive had his own close call soon after. In August the squadron was ordered on a midday patrol near Manston—now aptly dubbed ‘Hell’s Corner’ thanks to its proximity to the English Channel and as a focal point of the fighting. The Aussie led the dozen Spitfires aloft. As the engine pulled past 500 feet he flicked the oxygen supply on; with that, an abrupt explosion occurred as the ‘oxygen regulator blew up’. A deadly flame was flickering behind the instrument panel, and sparks and ‘dense smoke filled the cockpit and I realised with horror I was in trouble. My first thought was, Perhaps this killed Sawyer—I had to think of a way out. The Spitfire would obviously blow up in a few seconds—as soon as the oxygen fire heated the petrol tank to flash point.’[33]

  The Australian now faced a dilemma; he could not simply rol
l the Spitfire on its back and bale out, as the other aircraft were still in close formation and to do so could see him blown back into their thrashing twelve-foot propellers. Moreover, because the explosion had disintegrated his radio he could not warn his fellow aviators. This meant that if he peeled away, his vic would follow. His spur-of-the-moment solution was to use hand signals perfected in the previous months for aerobatics. It worked; both wing-men swung away from their wildly gesticulating leader. With only moments left to live, he pulled the controls back and sent the Spitfire heavenward. He needed to purchase enough height to bale out successfully.

  The Spitfire rocketed vertically. I unfastened the straps of the harness and tore off my flying helmet. Many pilots had broken their necks trying to abandon an aeroplane with the helmet still attached. It worked like a hangman’s rope. As the Spitfire stalled on the top of its climb, I kicked the left rudder hard and put it into a stall turn. This blew the flames over to one side of the cockpit as I pulled the canopy back, and jumping up on the seat, pushed out into the cool, sweet, fresh air.