New Heavens (9 page)

In Italy I found the American servicemen very different from the British. Usually, Allied troops got on well, but once in Rome during a night's frivolity in a large nightclub, a drunken American infantry major rushed from table to table, scowling threateningly as he asked all the RAF pilots if they had been flying a P-47 Thunderbolt in operations anywhere near the front line on the Adriatic side of Italy. I soon discovered that he was searching for fighter-bombers with markings different from those of the United States, which had mistakenly attacked his unit, killing some of his comrades. Fortunately I had been flying P-51s and P-40s, and I prefer not to think of what might have happened to me had I told him that I was flying P-47s.

I walked back to the hotel with two RAF men, and I recall my exaggerated praise of Britain alone in its stand against Hitler for so long and my disappointment with the United States for having entered the war so late. There is no doubt that had it not been for Britain in its stand in the early days of the war, the world would have fallen to the Nazis. Neither can there be doubt that without the power and industrial strength of the United States, Britain and her allies
would not have been able to withstand the forces of Nazi evil.

I was attracted by the relaxed American approach to life. The Americans seemed hooked on our bully beef, which we could not look at after a few months. We often swapped it for their Spam. I encountered examples of the Americans' easy-going attitude when I met a U.S. pilot watching a Spitfire in which I was to take off. We discussed the relative merits of my Spit and his twin-engine P-38, which I admired. He said, “You let me fly your Spitfire and I'll let you fly my P-38,” and he meant it. Also on one occasion, I hitched a ride in a U.S. C-47 from Rome to Naples, entirely without formal listing or permission, the pilot just saying “Sure thing, hop in and I'll drop you off in Naples.”

On arrival, I was billeted temporarily in a villa high in the Vomero. The villa was exquisite and peaceful, and below in the distance was a beautiful view of Naples and its bay. Down below but much nearer was the ugliness of the city with its corrupting hunger and despair.

Before a posting to 250 Squadron, I was sent to the Refresher Flying Unit (RFU) at Perugia to become familiar with the fighter aircraft we were to fly on missions and to get accustomed to flying in the European winter. The unit was at a strip between Perugia and Assisi, and we were lodged in a large farmhouse in which the owner, squire of the area, was ill and near death. The farmhouse was a pleasant
building on two floors and was an impressive, beautiful home for the family that had owned it. However, by the time we moved into it as quarters, it looked like what it was—billets for serving personnel, unkempt and showing the effects of being a transit camp.

In the midst of a freezing winter, heating became our main preoccupation. In sub-zero temperatures, we had no heating of any kind, not even hot water. In the officers' mess, the margarine for spreading on bread was frozen stiff. Our first priority was to heat our bedrooms and to get hot water. After moving into the rooms on the second floor, we broke holes in the exterior walls of our rooms, inserted makeshift chimneys, and constructed heating units made of forty-four-gallon drums with a copper pipe. We hammered the end so that a small jet of high-octane aircraft gasoline could be squirted into the drum.

We arranged flat burner trays below this outlet and fed in the high-octane fuel by gravity. This gave a blue flame with copious amounts of heat. We got ourselves so well organized that we began to feel very much at home. All went well except for the fact that our knocking and hammering upset the owner on his deathbed, and his daughter begged us to desist during the night.

While at Perugia a lively commerce began with the local Italian farm girls who brought us fresh eggs, which we paid for at the rate of ten cigarettes for one egg. The Italians had little trust in the Allied Military Government (AMGOT) money with which we had been issued. Very welcome mail from home began arriving for the first time on a regular basis. I had been given a strange address for my mother to
use: care of the Director of Personnel, SAAF Headquarters, Villa Victoria, Cairo. Surprisingly, there were regular deliveries every week or two.

In Perugia I met Tony Wills, a South African from Natal, who had gotten his wings at about the same time as me and also had a posting to 250 Squadron. He had blond hair and a blond moustache and was of a quiet disposition, rarely getting hassled by anything. We struck up an immediate friendship and became inseparable. I knew that he intended to become a teacher after completing his war service, and as he was a dyed-in-the-wool Natal resident of English stock, we found that my background of many years' schooling in Natal enabled us to have much in common. After the RFU we were sent to the squadron on the same day. In time we were to team up and fly many missions together.

I arrived at the squadron while it was billeted in a modern block of flats in the center of the small town of Fano on the Adriatic coast. We were three to a room, with better conditions than I had expected. Batmen saw to our laundry, cooking, and cleaning. Our pilots were a mixed bunch from various parts of the British Empire. In addition to the English pilots we had South Africans, Canadians, and Australians, and we all got on well.

Willie and I arrived late at night from the refresher course in Perugia and stumbled into the building in the dark, insecure and uptight at the future awaiting us in an
operational fighter squadron near the front line. A sergeant directed us to our sleeping quarters in one of the first-floor flats. When we heard raucous shouting and cursing, we went down the stairs and found a wild party was in progress in the cellar below. Alcohol was flowing, and everyone seemed to be having a great time while shooting at the ceiling and at the walls from the pilots' issue revolvers.

Conspicuous among the drunken pilots was one with his shirt hanging out, black rings around his eyes and a wild look. He was called Robbie. He was deputy squadron commander and had flown close to the 200 mission hours required to complete his tour of operations before going home. He had a fine record, but it was clear that he was almost at breaking point, something that happened to many at that stage of their operational career. I had the opportunity to fly with Robbie on a number of missions, and his handling of the squadron was responsible and skilled. His behavior at the party was his way of letting off steam and did not impair his operational competence.

When I asked one of the pilots what the occasion was for the party, he off-handedly said, “We lost two more pilots over Padua this morning.” I asked if this was unusual. The laconic reply was, “No, we lost three last week.” Willie and I looked at one another, and we were shaken. The full fighter squadron complement of pilots was twenty-two, and there were at that time less than fifteen of us including Willie and myself, so the law of averages did not make life look too promising for us. At the time, the squadron was mainly employed in dive-bombing heavily defended targets, such as bridges and railway marshalling yards, and low-level
strafing of transport columns. There had been many casualties.

The heavy losses in the squadron made the pilots spend their leisure time at a feverish pace. Everything took on an air of “Let's take it while we are still around to enjoy it.” We had many parties in the cellar with an Italian band to provide the music, stylishly attired in party clothing with red coats and black trousers. They usually started with ingratiating smiles and beaming countenances, which usually changed to stares of puzzlement and sheepish smiles when the pilots started acting wildly.

My first operation after joining the squadron was to attack the Casarsa rail junction in the northern plain of Italy. It was a mad scramble for me to try to keep up with the veterans, who coped easily with the pattern of taking off bunched closely, then forming into tight line-astern formations before moving into their finger formations of four aircraft per flight—twelve aircraft altogether when in full squadron strength.

After getting airborne, we started our long climb and made our way up the coast of Italy toward Casarsa staying over the Adriatic to avoid the German anti-aircraft batteries. When we got to the bend in the coastline after Venice, we edged in to fly over land as we prepared ourselves for the attack.

As we crossed the coast at 9,000 feet, the blasts of antiaircraft fire got closer as the gunners found their range and height. The leader started weaving and flying an erratic course with the rest of the squadron following suit. In a moment, there was a sudden change from our neat straight
and-level formation flying to a wild procession of aircraft acting like flies, up and down to the left and right. I had difficulty keeping my place behind my lead aircraft while taking care not to collide with the other weaving and twisting fighters near me.

When we approached the target area and the leader signaled us to form into stepped echelon, formation order returned to the gaggle of heavily loaded airplanes. I concentrated on keeping my position among the other Kittyhawks and tried not to let the shouting in my earphones distract my attention.

As we approached the target, the shell bursts came closer. When the leader rolled over onto his back and entered his dive, I followed him closely. The rail tracks converging on the marshalling yard appeared directly below the nose of my aircraft. The scream of the slipstream got louder, and my Kitty was buffeted from side to side.

I edged my gun sight up toward the center of the marshalling yard, and then pressed the red bomb-release button. I felt the release of the weight of my 1,000-pound bomb and immediately pulled back hard on the stick. As I zoomed upward and to the side, the shells continued bursting nearby.

Each of us searched for the rendezvous point where we had to fit into the circular line-astern pattern. The sky was full of our aircraft, and for me, on my first raid, it was particularly confusing. I had to identify the planes of my own squadron. After careening around among the many fighters in the area, I managed to locate my companions and joined
the closely bunched group of twelve aircraft. As soon as we were settled, the mission leader signaled to head home.

As we began our return flight I saw that all positions in the formation were filled and no one was missing. I began to relax, knowing that I had been through the baptism of fire on my first operational mission. Everything happened so quickly, but I was sure that the next mission would be easier. I had a feeling of satisfaction at knowing that I had completed my first operational mission and that I had overcome fear.

During my second mission, to dive-bomb a heavily defended target near Padua, I had a mortifying experience. I didn't realize I had left my radio transmitter in the transmit mode, and every word and curse that I uttered was heard by the entire force, preventing radio communication between any of the other aircraft. I am not the only pilot who talks to himself when on a raid, cursing the anti-aircraft fire, the leader of the formation, and anything else. Imagine my dismay when I realized that every word I had said was heard by everyone in the air on that frequency. After landing the leader, a shy young Englishman innocently asked me why I had cursed him. I hastened to explain that it was nothing personal and that it was only my way of releasing tension during the mission.

We had attacked some tough targets, but the worst was Padua. It was a target that always worried us when it was
planned, because the city and its immediate environs contained a bridge and marshalling yard complex. This transport nexus seemed to be of special importance to the Germans and was heavily defended by anti-aircraft guns of all calibers. It was such a hot spot that we took care not to fly near it when on the way to other targets.

Raids were often led by the squadron commander, though important targets were sometimes led by the wing commander. Sometimes, one of the more experienced pilots, usually one nearing the end of his tour of operations, acted as leader. Often, it was not a pilot of officer rank, and I remember one raid by all six squadrons of our wing involving more than seventy aircraft that was superbly led by a sergeant pilot near the end of his tour.

When another raid on Padua was announced by the squadron intelligence officer, a collective groan rose from the pilots. The pilot selected to lead the three squadrons this time was a Canadian, who had returned from a mission not long before with one of his wings riddled with bullet holes. His name was Jim Duval. Like others near the end of their tour, he had lost weight from the strain of waiting for his tour to end. Superstitiously, we believed the chances of getting hit were higher during the last few raids of our tours.

The raid was in the late morning. The sun was shining through the haze as we approached the target. Everything looked peaceful and quiet, only a little smoke from the industrial area and no traffic on the roads. Within minutes we saw the white puffs of the Bofors anti-aircraft guns, directed at 260 Squadron, the first of our wing to attack the target. I saw Jim wheel over onto his back as he went into
the dive. We followed him down but soon realized he was not pulling out of his dive.

Because he was senior to me and leading the mission, I hesitated; before I could even shout to him on my radio he dived right into the ground. All that was left was a small cloud of dust. There was no evidence of a bomb burst around him, but a pillar of smoke to one side was proof that he had allowed his bomb to skid away from its intended trajectory. A highly experienced dive-bomber pilot, he must have been hit during the dive. We formed up around his number two at the rendezvous point in the usual way after the raid and made our way sadly back to base.

We had taken off from our strip near the village of Cervia, where we had moved from Fano. It is a seaside resort farther north up the Adriatic coast and not far from Ravenna. In Cervia we operated from another metal strip in sand dunes near the sea, and our wing this time was the sole occupant of the narrow strip. The juxtaposition of the metal strip in the sand dunes and the peaceful beachfront was a poignant contrast. Peace and war and destruction living side by side. I had the same feeling whenever an environment of peace and normality at the base was followed by short operational missions that transport one into battle and back, unlike foot soldiers, in a matter of hours or even minutes.