21st December, 1943

Briefieng at 10.30.

Superb weather, a temperature fit for brass monkeys - not a trace of a cloud in the sky ? The Spitfires' wings were streaming with water, for the hot-air de-icing trailer had just passed. The runway was covered with ice.
I had to take off my gloves to do up my straps, and so my hands froze, and I couldn't get them warm again. I opened up the oxygen, to put a bit of stuffing into myself.
The ice on the runway theses last days has produced a crop of accidents, serious and otherwise. Smashed undecarts, taxiing accidents, etc. - and now we had only eleven serviceable planes left.
Drumbell, Jack, and I were MAX section, with the C.O. With 132, we were to patrol the Cambrai area, where german fighters fighters have been particularly active recently. We climbed to 20 000 feet, then, as the cold was intense, we cam down to 17 000.
The winter sky was so clear, so dazzling that after a mere twenty minutes over France we were continually blinking.
The controller told us there was a strong enemy fighter formation not far off, but it was impossible to spot anything in the dazzling night. To be on the safe side, as grass Seed was geeting urgent, we gained height again.

Suddenly, woooof ! Thrirty Focke Wulfs were on top of us. Before we could move a muscle, the brutes opened fire. A whirlwind of enormous radial engines, of short, slender wings edged with lightning, of tracer bullets whizzing in every direction, of black crosses all over the place. Panic. Everyone broke. In the space of one second the two flights' impeccable combat formation was disrupted, dislocated, scattered to the four winds. Too late ! Old Jonah was on his way down in flames, and Morgan, the Scots flight sergeant, in a spin, one wing torn off bay a hail of Mauser.
132 were no luckier. Three of their pilots were shot down. A fourth - as we learnt later - succedeed in bringing his badly damaged machine half way back across the Channel, then baled out and was fished out one hour later.
Once surprise had passed, we pulled ourselves together.
Captain ubertin, in command of Skittles, suddenly found himself isolated : his n° two and four has been shot down and his n° three had vanished into thin air - Poor old Spence had got a 20 mm. Shell four inches from his head which has smashed his radio to smithereens. Half knocked out he hes instinctively pulled the stick back and opened the throttle and had woken up at 36000 feet absolutely alone in the sky.
A Focke Wulf sneaked in behind the captain but missed him. The hun overshot him. He was carried away by his speed and Aubertin settled his ash in no time at all ; the biter bit. Unfortunately four other Focke-Wulfs engaged him and only did he failed to see his victim crash but he himself succeeded in getting away after after an eventfull 45-miles chase among the trees, round church steeples and through village streets. His Spitfire was hit seven times.
Meanwhile Jacques and I - contrary to our settled habits - folowed on Sutherland's hells like faithful hounds and had the pleasure of seeing him liquidate another "190" at 600 yards range. The Hun disintegrated in the air, but the pilot escaped : a little later we saw a parachute open out below us.
Danny fired a sly burst at a "190" but missed.
If results were wanted, this sweep certainly produced them - out of twenty three Spits, six were shot down, eight others damaged, not counting Williams of 132, who was wounded and had to belly-land.

7th january, 1944

A long trip this time. We were going to Rheims to fetch home a strong formation of flying fortresses and Liberators coming back from Germany. 602 was to cover the first three groups - 180 bmobers in all - and 132 the three following.
We took off at 1210 hours after a rushed lunch, and we flogged out aircraft, weighed down by forty-five-gallon auxilliary tanks, up to 23 000 feet. After thirty minutes flying we passed Paris on our right, sensed rather than seen below a cloak of mist and smoke. On the way German heavy batteries loosed some beautifully aimed salvoes which burst very close - we immediately scattered about the sky. The black puffs appeared on every side. Climbing at full throttle with Thommerson, we succeeded in getting out of range and re-forming, not without difficulty.

1050 hours. The jerries seemed to be reacting and the Focke-Wulls must be taking off all over the place because control was begining to get agitated. Still nothing near us.
Soon a closter of black dots appeared in the horizon, followed by others. Our bombers !
The Thunderbolts and lightnings whom we were relived returned to base, and we took up our positions - in patrol of four on either side of the formation.

A show of Fortresses certainly is an impressive sight ! The phalanx of bombers in impeccable defensive formation - several massive boxes of hundred or so four-engined aircraft in bank at 27,000 feet, each box bristling with 1,140 heavy 5 machine guns - spread out over twenty odd miles.
On either side of the Spitfire escort stretched as far as the eye could see. The top cover of Spits VIIs and IXs was only visible in the shapes of fine white condensation trails.
The visibility that day was splendid. The sky was dark indigo blue, paler toward the horizon, passing from emerald green to milky white where it merged with the bands of mist over the North Sea.
Below, France unfolded like a magic carpet. The peaceful meandering Seine and its tributaries, the dark masses of the forests with their curious geometrical shapes, the multi-coloured checker-board of the fileds and meadows, the tiny toy-like villages, the towns sullying the translucent sky with patches of smoke clinging to the warm layers of air.
The sun burnt through the transparent cockpits, and yet I could feel ice forming in my oxygen tube, and the exhaust gases condensed in a myriad microscopic crystals, marking the wake of my Spitfire in the sky.
Fatigue, stiffness, the painful cramp in my back, the cold searing my toes and fingers through the leather, the wool, and the silk, all wrer forgotten.

Here and there in the Fortress formations there were gaps. From close to you could see machines with one, sometimes two stationary engines and feathered propellers. Others had lacerated tail-planes, gaping holes in the fuselages, wings tarnished by fire or glistening with black oil oozing from gutted engines.
Behind the formation were the stragglers, making for the coast, for the haven of refuge of an advanced air base on the other side of the Channel, flyin only by a sublime effort of the will. You could image the blood pouring over the heaps of empty catridges, the pilot nursing his remaining engines and anxiously eyeing the long white tail of petrol escaping from his riddled tanks. These isolated fortresses were the Focke-Wulfs favourite prey. Therefore the squadrons detached two or three pairs of Spitfires, charged with bringing each one back safe : an exausting task as theses damaged fortresses often dragged along on a thrird of their total power, stretching the endurance of their escort to the limit.
On this occasion Ken sent Carpenter and me to escort a Liberator which was only in the air by a miracle. Its n°three engine had completely come out of its housing and hung on the leading edge, a mass of lifeless ironmongery. His n° One engine was on fire, the flames slowly eating into the wing and the smoke escaping through the aluminium plates of the upper surface, buckled by the heat. Through the tears in the fuselage, the survivors were throwing overboard all their superfluous equipment - machine guns, ammunition belts, radio, armour plates - to lighten their machine, which was slowly loosing height.
To crown all, there was a burst in the hydraulic system, freeing one of the wheels of the undercart which hung down and increased the drag still further.
At 1,800 revs., minus two boost and 200 m.p.h. we had to zigzag to keep level with him. We had been hunched up in our unconfortable cockpits for two hours already, and we were still over France, twelve miles behind the main formation. Ten Focke-Wulfs bagen to prowl round us, at a respectful distance, as if suspecting a trap. Anxiously Carp and I kept an eye on them.
Suddenly they attacked in pairs. Short of juice as we were, all we could do was to face each attack by a very tight 180° turn, fire a short burst in the approximate direction of the Hun, and immediately resume our position by another quick 180° turn. This performance was repeated a dozen times but we succeeded in making the Focke-Wufs keep their distance. They eventually tired of it - or so we thought.
Over Dieppe the fighters gave way to the Flak. We were flying at about 10,000 feet. The german light Flak opened fire with unbelievable frocity. An absolute pyramid of black puffs charged with lightning appeared in a fraction of a second. Violently shaken by several well-aimed shells, Carp and I separated and gained height as fas as we could with our meagre reserves of petrol. The poor Liberator, incapable of taking any sort of violent evasive action, was quickly bracketed. Just as, after a few agonizing seconds, we thought it was out of range, there was an explosion and the big bomber, cut in half, suddenly disepeared in a sheet of flame. Only three parachutes opened out. The blazing aluminium coffin crashed a few hundred yards from the cliffs in a shower of spray, dragging down the remaining members of the crew.
With heavy hearts we landed at Lympne, our tanks empty.
Luckily we were often more fortunate than this and succeeded in bringing our charges back to our airfield at Detling, where their arrival always caused the gratest agitation - ambulances, fire service, curious onlookers. We felt fully repaid by the gratitude in the eyes of the poor exhausted fellows. In many cases it was only the moral support of the presence of a pair of Spits that gave them the courage to hlod out to the end, to resist the temptation of baling out and waiting for the end of the war in some Oflag or other.

END

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"Over Dieppe the fighters gave way to the Flak. We were flying at about 10,000 feet. The german light Flak opened fire with unbelievable frocity. An absolute pyramid of black puffs charged with lightning appeared in a fraction of a second. Violently shaken by several well-aimed shells, Carp and I separated and gained height as fas as we could with our meagre reserves of petrol".