They Spread Their Wings (28 page)

Alan’s own first op came on 18 September. It was a reconnaissance of the Franco-German border with his usual crew, Barker and Williams, in K9380, but they were not airborne for very long before bad weather forced them to return to base. Next day the weather improved and Alan completed a two hour forty minute recco of the same area in K9379. He was on ops again on 25 September. This time it was a high-level photo reconnaissance along the Franco-German border by six aircraft led by the CO of No 74 Wing, Wg Cdr Allan Hesketh. Alan Summerson flew on this operation with his regular crew of Barker and Williams in K9380. The formation was flying well inside German territory when they encountered some accurate enemy anti-aircraft fire in the vicinity of Zweibrücken, and, after the Wingco’s aircraft L4948 was hit by shrapnel, they had to take a little evasive action, although the damage sustained was slight. A similar operation was carried out over a different sector by three more aircraft later that same morning.

Alan’s next sortie came on Saturday the 30th; it was another photo-recco op and he flew again in K9380. Six aircraft, led by Sqn Ldr MacDonald, took off just before 11.00 and spent the next two and a half hours inspecting well over the German side of the border once again. Alan’s aircraft was one of a separate section of three that took off shortly after the other six, to look at a different sector of the border. It turned out that Alan was very fortunate indeed to be in this smaller group because the first formation ran slap bang into eight Bf 109 fighters and was decimated.

No 150 Squadron’s first encounter with enemy fighters came as a rude awakening indeed, but sadly it was a portent of what was to come. The vulnerability of the Fairey Battle, though tacitly accepted by pretty much everyone in command, had not yet been tested in combat and naturally the crews themselves just got on with the job. Today was the day it would all be tested. One of the six Battles developed engine trouble and returned to base – it was the lucky one – leaving the five remaining aircraft to carry on with the operation. When they crossed the border into the Saarland region to recco the area from Metzig to Saarbrücken, German flak batteries put up a barrage but no damage was sustained and the formation flew steadily on.

Irritated by these almost daily incursions into German territory, the Luftwaffe decided to challenge the RAF. At around 11.45 a formation of eight Messerschmitt Bf 109E fighters from the 2nd Staffel of I Gruppe, Jagdgeschwader 53 (2/JG 53) known as the
Pik-As
(Ace of Spades) Jagdgeschwader (fighter-wing), based at Wiesbaden-Erbenheim, arrived to patrol the same piece of sky and the two formations clashed. A short, sharp air battle took place and inside twenty minutes the 109s had torn into the unescorted Fairey Battles and shot down all bar one.

Flying Bf 109 ‘Red 1’, the staffelkapitan, Spanish Civil War ace Oberleutnant (Oblt) Rolf Pingel, led his formation in a diving attack on the Fairey Battles and scored the first kill at 11.50 by sending K9484 down to crash to the west of Saarbrücken. The pilot, Plt Off John Saunders (aged 20), and WOp/AG AC1 Donald Thomas (19) died but the observer, Sgt G.J. Springett, baled out over German territory and was made a POW. Three minutes later Stabsfeldwebel (Stfw) Ignaz Prestele shot down N2093 flown by Flt Lt Laurence Hyde-Parker, with his observer, Sgt William Cole (19), and WOp/AG AC1 D.E. Jones. This aircraft crash-landed near Metzig with the loss of Sgt Cole. Flt Lt Hyde-Parker escaped unhurt and his air gunner Jones was injured. By now the Fairey Battle formation had broken up in total confusion. It was every man for himself and survival seemed to lie in diving hard in the general direction of home. K9387, flown by Fg Off Fernald Corelli with Sgt L.B. Webber and AC Kenneth Gray, was cut off and badly shot up by Unteroffizier (Uffz) Franz Kaiser. It was this fighter pilot’s first air victory and Corelli and Gray were killed in the hail of bullets. Observer Sgt Webber managed to bale out and descend safely into friendly hands. That was at 11.57. The fourth Battle, N2028, flown by Plt Off M.A. Poulton with Sgt T.A. Bates and AC1 H.E.A. Rose on board, was attacked by Uffz Hans Kornatz in ‘Red 5’ at about 12.05. This crew was fortunate to escape injury but their Battle was so badly damaged that there was no hope of reaching base and all three airmen baled out. This left the CO’s aircraft, K9283, alone in the sky – but not for very long. After the shock of the first attack, Sqn Ldr MacDonald put the nose down and dived hard for the deck chased by several 109s, including that of Stfw Prestele. All the air gunners had found the fighters hard to hit but the CO’s gunner, AC1 Alexander Murcar, managed to get a bead on Prestele’s machine and ‘draw blood’. Stfw Prestele’s 109 was damaged, forcing him to break off the fight and return to base. Yet another 109 bore down on the CO’s aircraft as he crossed the border. It was piloted by Uffz Josef Wurmheller, who was also seeking his first victory. Now twisting and turning at treetop height, Wurmheller pressed home his attacks and hit his target hard – later reports spoke of more than forty holes found in MacDonald’s aircraft – slightly wounding the observer Sgt Fred Gardiner and AC1 Murcar. With his victim close to the ground and streaming smoke as he broke away, Wurmheller believed he had done enough to claim his first kill, but, despite all the damage, Sqn Ldr MacDonald was able to limp back to base. Lowering the undercarriage, he brought his battered Battle in to land but one of the wheels was shot up and the aircraft ground-looped, collapsed and burst into flames – so Wurmheller’s claim indeed turned out to be valid.

Another outcome of this disastrous encounter can be found in the following citation from
The London Gazette
, dated 14 November 1939:

The Medal of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, For Meritorious Service. 517540 Sgt Frederick Gardiner RAF.

In September 1939, the aircraft in which Sgt Gardiner was air observer was attacked by enemy aircraft and severely damaged. Two petrol tanks were punctured and despite the fumes and bleeding from a slight gunshot wound over the right eye, this airman continued his duties and succeeded in setting an accurate course to the base. The aircraft caught fire on landing and although his clothes were alight, Sgt Gardiner commenced to extinguish the burning clothing of the wireless operator by rolling him on the ground and beating the flames with his hands. Not until his efforts were successful did he attend to his own clothing.

Sgt Gardiner and AC1 Murcar were whisked off to a hospital in Chalons to have their wounds and burns treated. Fred Gardiner’s medal was presented to him on Plivot airfield by HM George VI in person, during his battlefield tour in December 1939. Even later, on 20 February 1940,
The London Gazette
announced awards of the DFC and DFM to Sqn Ldr William MacDonald and AC1 Alexander Murcar respectively, for their actions on that fateful day, 30 September 1939. In their cases no citations were published. Of the fifteen young airmen – many just 19 or 20 years old – in the five aircraft, eight made it back to Écury airfield by one means or another, six died and one was captured.

What is also interesting is that the two protagonists – No 150 Squadron and JG 53 – were destined to meet again in a far bigger battle before too long.

* * *

As a further consequence of the losses from the incident on 30 September and similar experiences in other squadrons, HQ AASF ordered that Fairey Battles were no longer to be used for daylight reconnaissance flights into enemy territory; this duty would be handed over to the Blenheim squadrons. It was not until March 1940 that No 150 Squadron recommenced operational flights over enemy territory, with some ‘Nickel’ (dropping propaganda leaflets) night raids, and Alan, now promoted to LAC, made his first of these leaflet-dropping ops on 25 March. He was with his usual crew in K9380 and they took off from Écury at 21.35 with a load of what many airmen regarded as ‘free toilet paper’ destined for Mannheim. However, they ran into bad weather quite soon and were forced to abandon the sortie, landing back at base at 22.10. Almost a month elapsed before Alan flew another Nickel raid, this time on the night of 21/22 April. Operational order 71/0/25/40 received from HQ 71 Wing required four aircraft from No 150 Squadron to drop Nickel on specified targets along the Rhine and to carry out reconnaissance along various parts of the river. Battle K9380, with Sgt Barker, Sgt Williams and LAC Summerson, was first up from Écury at 21.00 and flew to Worms via what was designated as Route No 3. Nickel was dropped over the town from a height of 10,000ft and the remainder of the op took in a recco of the River Rhine between Worms and Mannheim. This op was successful and Sgt Barker landed back at 23.30. The other three aircraft took off at intervals: K9369 with Fg Off Blom was airborne at 21.20, Nickelled Mannheim and recco’d the River Necker from Mannheim to Heidelberg, landing back at 00.10 hours. Next, K9379 was airborne at 22.00 with Fg Off Beale in command; he flew to Heidelberg, which was Nickelled from 10,000ft, and the Rhine was surveyed from 5,000ft between Mannheim and Speyer, before the return to base at 00.45 hours. The final aircraft, K9390, left at 22.30 with Flt Lt Parker at the controls, bound for Speyer. Nickel was dropped on the town from 10,000ft before descending to 3,000ft to carry out a recco of the Rhine between Speyer and Germersheim, then returning to base at 00.55. Similar operations were mounted by other crews on subsequent nights.

On 10 May 1940 the balloon went up. The German blitzkrieg advance into France began when enemy troops crossed the Dutch and Belgian frontiers. Their main thrust came in the south, through the Belgian Ardennes forest – which had been thought impassable to mechanised forces – and Luxembourg. General Heinz Guderian and his 19th Panzer Korps were heading for Sedan and the French moved their forces to confront this huge threat.

At noon on the 10th and acting on his own initiative, the British air commander, Air Marshal Barratt, ordered thirty-two Battles from Nos 12, 103, 105, 142, 150, 218 and 226 Squadrons to attack enemy troops advancing through Luxembourg. There would be no fighter escort and so the Battles were ordered to go in as low as 250ft and drop delayed-fuse bombs. Intense light flak and small arms fire accounted for the loss of thirteen of these aircraft and every one of the remainder sustained some degree of damage. It was while flying this operation that Flt Lt Bill Simpson from No 12 Squadron – of whom we shall hear more later – was shot down.

From No 150 Squadron four Battles were sent off at 15.30, in two sections of two aircraft each, to bomb a column of enemy troops on the Luxembourg to Echternach road. The first pair found the target but the second section led by Flt Lt Eric Parker could not and bombed a different column of troops – there was certainly no shortage of targets! Three of these aircraft were shot down. During the late afternoon, No 150 Squadron was again brought to thirty minutes’ readiness but, no doubt with much relief, no further operations materialised that day.

At 06.10 the next morning the war reached Écury with a bang. The airfield came under heavy aerial attack by between eighteen and twenty-four enemy bombers dropping an estimated 150 bombs from 12,000ft altitude. By the end of the raid the airfield had eighteen craters across it and the armoury tent and pyrotechnic store were set on fire and destroyed. Battle P2334 caught fire and was destroyed when its two 250lb bombs exploded. Battle P2335 sustained slight damage from flying fragments and five unexploded enemy bombs were littered around the northern edge of the field. That evening, in an effort to protect the aircraft, ‘B’ Flight’s eight Battles were flown to a satellite airfield at Vatry, a few miles away.

Fairey Battle JN-I, of No 150 Squadron, shot down near Sedan on 10 May 1940. (Andrew Thomas)

‘B’ Flight returned at 09.00 on the 12th and at 14.45 a section of three aircraft from the flight, led by Flt Lt Weeks, with Sgt Andrews and Plt Off Campbell-Irons as the pilots of the other two, took off to attack a mechanised column between Neufchâteau and Bertrik. At 15.25 the formation ran into very intense flak a mile east of Neufchâteau. Ian Campbell-Irons’ aircraft P2236 took a direct hit, exploded and crashed in flames just south of the town, killing him and his crew, Sgt Thomas Barker and LAC Reg Hinder. The two remaining aircraft found the target column a couple of miles west of Neufchâteau and dropping down to just 100ft, laid a stick of eight 250lb bombs with eleven-second delay fuses along its length. They both returned to base at 16.05 but one was badly damaged by gunfire and written off.

Just three days into the campaign, No 150 Squadron and indeed the whole AASF was taking heavy casualties in terms of men and machines. We should also remind ourselves that the French Air Force was heavily committed and suffering similarly badly. Early in the morning of the 13th the Germans reached Sedan, on the Meuse, and prepared to cross the river, which was perceived by the opposing French army as a strong defensive barrier – but they had never seen a strategy of the ferocity of blitzkrieg before! All through that day wave after wave of Stukas, Heinkels and Junkers Ju 88s of the Luftwaffe relentlessly pounded French positions across the river in one of the greatest air bombardments ever seen. Using pontoon bridges, by the middle of the afternoon Guderian’s 19th Panzer Korps had launched its river crossing operations at three points in the Sedan sector and had soon established a bridgehead on the other side. Now it needed to be consolidated and expanded in the thrust for the Channel. During the 13th, rumours began to spread among French forces that tanks were already across the river and had penetrated their lines. This was not the case but it triggered a piecemeal, badly co-ordinated French retreat that, when German tanks did actually cross a specially strengthened pontoon bridge during the night of the 13/14th, caused a catastrophic gap to appear in the weakened French front that was exploited by the Germans. Now facing defeat at Sedan, with all its implications for the enemy’s dash to the Channel, French Army Command urged the RAF to commit everything it had to stem the flow by destroying the bridges and pontoons on the River Meuse around the city. The RAF responded magnificently. It may have lacked effective aircraft but its aircrew were not found wanting. Alan Summerson was one of these men.