"Thà;1$th of September," he says, "dawned bright and clear at Croydon, It never seemed to do anything else during those exciting weeks of August and September. But to us it was just another day. We weren't interested in Hitler's entry into London; most of us were wondering whether we should have time to finish breakfast before the first blitz started, We were lucky, "qt wasn't till 9.30 a.m, that the sirens started wailing and the order came through to rendezvous base at 20,000 ft, As we were climbing in a southerly direction at 15,000 ft, we saw 30 Heinkels supported by 50 Me. 1095 4,000 ft, above them, and 20 No, 110's to a flank, approaching us from above. We turned and climbed, flying in the same direction as the bombers with the whole squadron strung out in echelon to port up sun, so that each man had a view of the enemy.
"+A? flight timed their attack to perfection, coming down sun in a power dive on the enemy's left flank, As each was selecting his owfi\man, some planes of the Me, 110 escort roared in t intercept with cannons blazing at 1,000-yd. range, but they were two seconds too late—too late to engage our fighters, but just in time to make them hesitate long enough to miss the bomber leader, Two Heinkels heeled out of the formation, "The way was clear for flight, as long as the Me. 109s stayed above, 'B' flight leader knew how to bide his time, but just as he was about to launch his attack, the Heinkels did the unbelievable thing, They turned south; into the sun; and into him. With his first burst the leader destroyed the leading Heinkel bomber which blew up with such force that it knocked a wing off the left-hand bomber, A little bank and a burst from his guns sent the right-hand Heinkel out of the formation with smoke pouring out\of both engines, Before returning home he knocked down an Me, 109, Four aircraft destroyed for an expenditure of 1,200 rounds was the best justification for our new tactics,"
It must be borne in mind that this great battle was made up of squadron attacks followed by numbers of personal combats, all taking place more or less at the same time over this wide area, Squadrons flying in pairs or wings of three units went into action in formation against an enemy similarly diseased. After the first attack delivered as often as possible out of the sun, they broke up and individual duels took place all over the sky, Certain of the more striking incidents may be briefly recorded, There were the dive attacks carried cut by-one squadron of Spitfires which twice passed through an enemy bomber formation, each time delivering beam attacks as they did so, These tactics threw the enemy into extreme confusion, The bombers turned almost blindly, it seemed, aircraft dropping in flames or in uncontrolled dives with every few miles of the return journey, One such aircraft, of which the cowling and cabin top blew off, shed its crew who bailed out, all except the rear gunner, who was seen to be hanging from the lower escape hatch until the aircraft dived into a wood, ten miles east of Canterbury, Then there was the pilot who twice attacked an Me, 109 which each time strove to escape in an almost vertical Head-on attack by one Hurricane against twelve Messerschmitts, as described in the story, bags two planes and damages a third. Most terrifying of atr manœuvres, the headon attack is a matter of split seconds ili which the planes rush together at 300-400 m.p.h. dive.
"The first of these from 20,000 ft, was successful, for the German pilot straightened out but only to find that the British pilot had followed squadrons of Spitfires opened their attack against the oncoming Germans in the Maidstone-Canterbury-Dover-Dungeness area, These were in action slightly before ihe Hurricane Squadrons, which intercepted farther back, between Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells and South London, The Germans were found to be flying in various types of formations, The bombers were usually some thousands of feet below the fighters but sometimes this position was reversed, The bombers flew either in Vies (a "V'"-shaped formation) of from five to seven aircraft or in lines of five aircraft abreast or in a diamond formation, The Me, 109's were usually in Vics, One pilot has described the attacking German aircraft as flying in Uttle groups of nine arranged in threes like a sergeant's stripes, Each group of nine was in this case supported by a group of nie Me, 110 fighters with single-seater Me, 109's or He, 113s circling high above, The enemy soon realized that our defence was awake and active, fór the German pilots could be heard calling out to each other over their wireless phones, "Achtung, Schpitfeuer!" They had need to keep alert. Our pilots opened fire at an average range of from 250 to 200 yd., closing when necessary to 50 yd, Many of the enemy fighters belonged to the famous yellow-nosed squadrons, though some had white noses and even occasionally red, Once the battle was joined, regular formation was frequently lost and each pilot chose 2n individual foe, The following &ccount of one combat can be taken as typical of the rest A pilot, whose squadron was attacking in echelon starboard, dived out of the sun on to an Me, 109 which blew up after receiving his first burst of fire, By this time he found that another Me, 109 was on his tail. He turned, got it in his sights and set it on fire with several bursts, He was now separated from his comrades and therefore returned to his base, As he was coming down he received s message saying that the enemy were above. He looked up, saw a group of Dorniers at 14,000 ft, climbed and attacked them, He got_in a burst at a Dornier; other friendly fighters came up to help, The enemy aircraft crashed into a wood and exploded.
While the Spitfires and Hurricanes were in action over Kent, other Hurricanes were dealing with such him down and was close upon him, "By that time," said the British pilot, "I was going faster than the enemy aircraft and I continued firing until I had to pull away to the right to avoid a collision," His burst of fire had taken effect, for the German never recovered, but plunged down until he entered cloud, about 6,000 ft, below, when the British pilot had to recover from the dive as his aircraft was going at approximately 480 mph. "I then made my way through the cloud at a reasonable speed," he reported, "and saw the wreckage of the enemy aircraft burning furiously....I climbed up through the cloud and narrowly missed colliding with a Ju, 88 which was on fire and being attacked by numerous Hurricanes."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.