hist2004
06-19-2004, 09:40 PM
Before the Battle of Britain, Dennis David had already become an ace over France-and had returned with valuable lessons on how to fight the Luftwaffe.
Interview by Jon Guttman
More than 60 years have passed since the Battle of Britain raged over south-east England. In the summer of 1940, Royal Air Force pilots flying Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires fended off the threat of German invasion by air and sea, for which Prime Minister Winston Churchill said of them, with more than a little justification: "Never in the course of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few."
One of these airmen, William Dennis David, had the unusual distinction of becoming an ace even before the battle, as a Hawker Hurricane pilot during the campaign in France. He returned to England with valuable experience to share with his colleagues at home for their coming struggle with the seasoned airmen of Adolf Hitler's Luftwaffe.
JG: How did you come to join the RAF?
David: I was born in Surbiton, Surrey, on 25th July 1918. At age 14 I left school to become a trainee with an uncle who was the managing director for a large clothing warehouse in London. I'd had five years with him and was going very well, when he told me, "See, Dennis, the Germans might attack us, and I suggest you think very seriously about joining one of the services."
By the time I was a teenager in the 1930s, Britain had fought a war about every 20 years. We'd had the Boer War; we'd had the Great War. A lot of us were keen to join one of the services to show we'd be ready in case the next war broke out. I had always loved horses but unfortunately when I tried to enlist in London, the cavalry regiments had just taken over tanks. So I thought the next best thing was the air force. The Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve was just starting up, and I joined up and later was granted a short-service commission.
JG: Were you at all influenced by the exploits of the aces of World War I?
David: Yes, to an extent, but we didn't think we were good enough to be like those people. The Royal Air Force trained us in our spare time and our weekends to fly, and that was marvelous. From the time I made my first solo, my mind was completely fixed on flying. I joined the regular RAF in 1937, and it was more than I thought it would be. They were great chaps in the air force. It was good to spend one's late teenage years with those people-they were magnificent. It was a worthwhile life.
JG: Did you feel that you were well-trained when the war began in September 1939?
David: Yes, I'd had 200 hours on my own Hurricane when the war came. They tended to have one pilot who kept his own airplane-he cleaned it, saw that it was maintained and ready for a quick take-off, and that's half the battle. Each pilot was very proud of his airplane, as you can imagine. Unfortunately, the Germans started picking us off. We lost to many in France. The biggest problem we had during the Battle of Britain was not a shortage of pilots, but a shortage of experienced fighter pilots.
JG: Your assigned Hurricane, L1630, seems to have lasted a long time.
David: Yes, it was a lovely airplane-I got very fond of it. There was a small No. 87 Squadron pennant with a snake on the vertical stabilizer and a Welsh dragon, my old family crest, which my fitter painted on the door beneath my canopy in Lille. My ground crew saved that door after the L1630 crashed, and it is still available for people to see at a museum in Shoreham, Kent.
JG: Were you at ail surprised d when war broke out?
David: No, we halt expected it. The Germans had been taking countries all over Europe and at that point we knew they'd be coming at us. After Britain declared war on 3rd September 1939, 1 had only a week w ith my squadron in England, and then we were out in France, on 9th September. We first went to a lovely place called Boos, near Rouen, where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake back in 1431. We saw very little of the French air force. It seemed they'd left to us to guard northern France.
JG: What was the general feeling among the British when you went to France?
David: We were confident. The British Expeditionary Force was made of first-class troop, with what we thought w as good equipment, but in fact it was very outdated. And we'd -had years of training in World War I fighter tactics, but when we fought World War II it was quite a different sort of thing. It sounds crazy, but most of the Fighter Command tactics we learned were, I think, suicidal. We flew in thick, tight formations and we never looked behind us, so the Germans could pick us off whenever they wanted to. The Luftwaffe fighters tended to fly in a fluid finger-four formation, never flying straight and level, swaying and moving their airplanes around, at the same time looking behind themselves. We soon learned from the Germans-not so much imitating them as copying them-and that is why the Battle of France was important as a rehearsal for the Battle of Britain.
JG: About when did No. 87 Squadron start incorporating the German "finger four" into its tactics?
David: Very quickly after 10th May, when it all blew up in France and things became very complicated. By about the third day we'd learned all those new tactics and we flight leaders were encouraging our boys to be behind us, weaving around and looking behind us, instead of flying in tight formations to impress the enemy-when in fact they were no more impressed than my Aunt Fanny.
JG: You were credited with damaging a Heinkel He-111 of 2nd Staffel (Foto) of Aufklarungsgruppe (reconnaissance group) 122 over Poperinghe early on 2nd November 1939. What were the circumstances of that clash?
David: We were based at Lille at that time. The Heinkel was on a reconnaissance mission and we were sent after him. I was hit myself and Pilot Officer Chris Mackworth's plane was so badly damaged that he was forced to land. The He-111 was a very good bomber, actually. They used to have very good rear gunners and their pilots seemed to know what they were doing a bit more than in other German bombers.
JG: Was that encounter your only action during the "Phony War" prior to May 1940?
David: Well, we were flying as much as we could scrounge, often covering the "leave boat," which went from Calais and Boulogne to go to England to drop servicemen going home on leave. We had a lot of training to do and we had a lot of newcomers to train. We were trying to improve ourselves all the time.
JG: Did you have any contact with the French, who had been having a number of aerial clashes with the Germans in their sector to the southeast?
David: I didn't see any of them at all in the north. I met one or two personal friends, such as Jacques Allez, a Capitaine or Commandant who was a very nice man from Paris. They shot down a lot of German aircraft around Paris, and had we had to face those during the Battle of Britain, England would have been in even worse straits. The French did awfully well with what they had, but a lot of their equipment was out of date, too.
The French also had political rows going on all the time. Worse, they had this crazy idea that their Maginot Line would be impregnable, when actually the Germans simply went through and around it in one day. That was a tremendous shock to French militarythey didn't believe it. But the Germans had that relentless strategy of theirs, the Blitzkrieg. They sent their dive-bombers in first and immediately followed up with their tanks. They were professionals at war and we were amateurs-that sums it up. We had to learn from them.
JG: When was your next serious encounter with the Luftwaffe?
David: That was on 10th May as the Germans invaded the Low Countries. It was an ordinary day-we went down near the Maginot Line to have a bit of practice and to see if we'd get some operational flying, but suddenly, the news came through that the Germans had started their advance. I had just been briefed to do a sector reconnaissance when they called me back. And then, on the way, a flight of German bombers suddenly came across our Hurricanes at an airfield near Metz. I doubt if they expected us there any more than we expected to find them. As I was coming down to land, I saw what I thought were trees, but they were bomb bursts. After that, I took off again and I ran into the formation of German bombers. I came in from the stern at high speed, firing all the time as I got close and an He-111 burst into flame. Then I turned around to have another go at the rest of the flight, but it had broken up.
My No. 2 had shot down another one. It was sheer luck, reallyit wasn't planned or anything. Then, I went back to base, for I really had to get some more ammunition. On the next sortie I ran into Dornier Do-17s, shooting down one and sharing in the destruction of another. The Dorniers were much easier to shoot down than Heinkels, but they tended to keep bunched together so their rear gunners had maximum firepower. The Germans were very well disciplined, but they did not expect us to be as aggressive as we were. After the war, one German bomber pilot remarked to me: "I once told [German fighter ace Adolf] Galland, `These Brits are different-they're shooting us down.'"
JG: On the very next day, you got another double-a Junkers Ju-87B Stuka of Sturzkampfgeschwader 2, as well as one of three Do- 17Ms of Stab (staff squadron)/StG.2 that were overseeing the Stukas' attack, all three of which were destroyed in that action. What was your impression of that fight?
David: Six of us found about 40 Germans dive-bombing a camp, which we thought might have been a hospital. The Ju-87 was quite an easy aircraft to shoot down. It wasn't as fast or as manoeuvrable as the Hurricane. The Do-17 was also a relatively easy one-actually, nothing was really easy, but I did as Air Marshal Keith Park used to tell us: "Get in, get your chap and get out."
We shot down 14 in all and drove the raiders away, but as we were on the way back from that, 150 more came across. We were never overawed by the Germans, never frightened by them, but we were a bit outnumbered. You couldn't really hang around to claim anything, because the 109s [Luftwaffe fighter aircraft] were around to pick you off, too. By then we were learning.
JG: On May 12, you were credited with your fifth official victory, making you an ace in just three days. What do you recall of that occasion?
David: I do remember that one quite clearly. It was over Lille, an He-111 was quite high up and I know I got him because I had oil all over my windshield. I thought he'd shot my engine out, but in actual fact it was German oil-his oil tanks had burst. And with that, their undercarriage always fell down. When I first went to France, I never thought I'd be an ace, but gradually you get more and more proficient at it. As far as being an ace went at that time, however, we didn't have time to think about it.
JG: On 16th May you had your first run-in with Me- 109Es, from I Gruppe, Jagdgeschwader 27 (I/JG.27). How did you fare against them?
David: We were vaguely looking for them, but three of them came down on us. By that time, we were emulating their tactics, flying in a finger-four, and we broke. The great thing about the Hurricane was that you could sling it over into a steep turn. If you can out-turn the brutes, then you're halfway there. My wingman stuck with me the best that he could. I was firing at anything that came my way, while trying to fight my way out of it. I was hitting somebody-I was credited with one destroyed and I'm sure I got two others, but we didn't have a chance to confirm them. It was very quick, rather like all air battles-the sky was full of airplanes fighting together and then, suddenly, there was not an airplane to be seen.
JG: On 18th May you damaged two Me-109s and then, on the 19th, you were credited with shooting down an Me-110 and teaming up with two others to shoot down an He-111, as well as downing another Me110 and an Me-109 that were unconfirmed. Who was with you in that day's fighting?
David: I don't remember who my wingmen were. By then, Gary Nowell had had a very nasty crash and badly injured his leg. He went into hospital and by the time they took the bandages off his leg, they found it covered in maggots. The doctor said, "Thank God." Maggots only eat the putrid flesh, you know, so he was saved from gangrene. He went back to England and he was fighting again very shortly after that.
The Me-110s were being used for special flights and they rather thought they were better than they were, initially, but the 110 was not a difficult aircraft to shoot down. I later met Major Wolfgang Schenk, who led the Me-110 fighter-bombers at the end of the war, and he told me that the 110 was good in the anti-shipping role, but it was not much good as an escort. The Me-110s later made brilliant night fighters, but as day fighters they were useless. They used a defensive circle, so their front guns and their rear gunners could cover one another and their crews were obviously concerned about our Hurricanes, but speaking for himself, Schenk told me, "A leader must never show his fear."
JG: Even taking the confusion of those days into account, you had quite a combat record from neophyte to "old hand" in nine days.
David: Yes, and being a 22-year-old "old hand" is a very funny feeling, as you can imagine. But on 20th May I crashed my airplane and was sent home in a hospital plane.
JG: Were you badly hurt?
David: No-dead tired, actually, I hadn't really slept in nine days. They were really withdrawing me to rest and then train new pilots for the fight to come. I was told when I got over there that my dear old Squadron No. 87 would most likely be on the south coast of England, but it would have to be reformed in the north, with new airplanes and pilots. So I went out to Leeds and rejoined my squadron. I received a new Hurricane, P3404, and I did quite well in that one.
JG: How did you react upon learning of France signing an armistice for all practical purposes, a surrender-on 22nd June?
David: At that point, we knew the Battle of Britain was coming. I know this much, too. When the French capitulated and we were on our own in England, I'd say there was a feeling of relief. It was terrible to lose France, but we felt, "Well, now we can really get at it."
JG: How ready did you feel Britain was for the onslaught to come?
David: Air Marshal Hugh Dowding was a very wise customer. He said, "Keep them worried all the time. Get at them when you can, but keep your fighter force intact if you can, for I've got to protect England." He knew the odds he was going to face, which we did face, six-to-one-and even up to 20-to-one odds, sometimes, in France. But we never felt beaten by the brutes. Certainly outnumbered, but we always had a go. I think we were a bit more determined than our German counterparts. I know in my case, my mother lived in London and I couldn't stand the buggers with the black crosses coming over to London and bombing it-so I got very aggressive. A very ordinary man changes quite a lot.
JG: No doubt about the RAF pilots' motivation, but what about their proficiency?
David: We were training the new boys as fast as we could-many of them were 18 years old, just out of school. They were no match for Galland and his veterans. We had to take them in hand and try to get them to fight effectively as soon as possible. After about a month of training, No. 87 Squadron was at Exeter, on the south coast. Nobody ever feels ready, but I was very worried about the standard of the pilots we had. They were very willing and wonderful chaps, but I wished they had more experience.
JG: When was your next action?
David: On a Sunday, 11th August 1940, off Portland Bill. There were fuel tanks there and the Germans were trying to bomb them. We went after them and I shot down a Junkers Ju-88A. The Ju-88 could take a lot of punishment, and I had to really hit it. Then Me-109s attacked us and John R. ****, who had already downed a Ju88, got an Me-109 and two probables before he was shot down. He went to hospital that night because a fragment of his radio went into his arm, but he rejoined us in September.
Later on, while they were salvaging his Hurricane from the sea on 30th August, 1983, **** confirmed that I had shot down another airplane. I didn't know it. I had aimed at one of the 109s trying to shoot Johnny in his parachute-it's awful to see a 109 trying to shoot a man in his parachute. It was hardly a one-second burst, but it must have been deadly, because he saw that chap crash straight into the sea, 10 miles southeast of Portland.
The Germans did damage to the port, but not major damage. We'd try to get their leaders if we could, but it was always a matter of getting in a shot or two while you could, then you upped your neck and got in a dogfight with a 109 determined to kill you.
JG: What were the circumstances of your next success, on 15th August?
David: That was another easy one, a Ju-87 one mile east of Portland Bill, and I also probably got an Me-110. The Germans were paying a lot of attention to the Southampton area at that time. We were making Spitfires there, and there were also our radar towers-they were always bombing those. You never knew what target they were going on to. Soon after that, the Luftwaffe tried night bombing over Cardiff and we were kept up late trying to intercept them. It was in actual fact a waste of time, because the day fighters just could not see the airplanes at night without radar. It was dangerous, too, trying to take off and land in the dark.
JG: Your next fight seems to have been over Portland Bill again, on 25th August.
David: It was Ju-88s again, trying for the fuel tanks a second time. I remember being in the bomber formation and I was shooting at one and I heard an awful noise as one exploded. They were being knocked off, but they stuck to their formation-they were very brave boys. Me-109s intervened again, but as usual I immediately went into a steep turn-that way, at least you knew what was coming at you and by the time you completed your turn you'd be on his tail. I sent one of them down three miles northwest of Portland. If we could get the 109s on their own, they were easy meat.
JG: On 15th September, the RAF confronted a major Luftwaffe bombing effort over London, resulting in 31 British and 59 German aircraft shot down-a German defeat that the British commemorate as Battle of Britain Day. What did you contribute to that day's tally?
David: I downed a lone He-111 three and a half miles south-west of Bolt Head, and it proved to be the first of the day. He was a weatherman on a reconnaissance flight who never got home. I got between him and the clouds, because once they made it to the clouds, they got away. I then made the usual attack from the rear and saw the wheels falling down. It ditched in the Channel and I later learned the Germans sent out some floatplanes to try to locate it, but they couldn't find it anywhere.
JG: Didn't you leave No. 87 Squadron after the 15th September action?
David: I went to Tangmere the very next day, to command B Flight in No. 213 Squadron. We did quite a bit of fighting from there. I was only credited with one, but that was a very interesting thing. It occurred on 19th October, when the Luftwaffe was sending in what we called intruder raids to annoy us. I caught a Ju-88 four miles north of Manston and popped off a lot of lead into him, but he still flew-I couldn't understand it. I flew alongside him and could see the pilot crouched over the column. I knew the rear gunner was killed because nobody was manning the guns, but I had no more ammunition left and the coast of France was coming up, so I thought it was time I went home. My last victory was subsequently confirmed because the Maquis, the French resistance, sent a message back to London, reporting how the shot-up Ju-88 crashed on the field, and saying, "Send us back more like this one." That was at about the end of the Battle of Britain, though we didn't know it at the time.
JG: Why do you think the German air offensive failed?
David: Goring was a funny old chap, but he was being fed all kinds of funny information from his fighter boys, about how they had shot down so many of us, when actually they hadn't. He was also not being told the number of them that we were shooting down, so both Goring and Hitler thought that they were winning the war. The Germans' biggest mistake, though, was in not keeping up the pressure on our fighters. When they pulled their attacks off our airfields and began to bomb our towns in early September-I know it was pique on the part of Hitler and Goring-that's when they lost the war. They were doing jolly well until then.
JG: After transferring to No. 152 Squadron on 23rd November, you became an instructor at 55 Operational Training Unit in March 1941. Was that the end of your combat career?
David: Well, the OTU is worth some mention, because we had this place where we could send the pilots so we could pass on all the experience that we could give them. That gave the lads a lot of confidence. I did, however, fly Bristol Beaufighters with a night fighter unit, No. 89 Squadron, for a year.
JG: What was the Beaufighter like?
David: It was a lovely aircraft, but difficult to fly because of the powerful engines. You had to be very careful to keep her straight. It killed a lot of people, but it was a great fighter, very powerfully armed.
JG: Did you ever get to try a night interception using radar?
David: No-1 was lucky. Once the Germans became active in North Africa, the squadron was sent out to the Middle East. After things improved in the Middle East, the squadron was sent to Burma. We only downed one Japanese plane the whole time-one of my chaps got that one, a big flying boat that was flying over Columbo, Ceylon. It didn't expect the Beaufighter to be there, and it was shot down. The only other interesting thing was when I captured Akyab Island.
JG: You captured Akyab? By yourself?
David: On New Year's Day 1945, I was flying over it in a Stinson L-5 and a white flag appeared and the natives waved me down to land. The Japs had just left, on 31st December. So I had the pleasure of having captured Akyab. When I got back to the base, we got the British commander to cancel the terrific bombardment and invasion that was scheduled for the next day.
In actual fact the commander contacted Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was our theatre commander, and obtained his permission to do this. I flew Lt. Gen. Sir Philip Christison to the Akyab beachhead the next day, where we were able to welcome his own XV Corps troops as they came ashore-minus the bombardment.
JG: You continued your career in the RAF after the war, retiring in May 1967. Were there any highlights during that time?
David: I was air attache in Hungary during the 1956 Uprising. The Hungarian Freedom Fighters were magnificent chaps.
JG: What did you do after retiring from the RAF?
David: I was the company chairman and director of an engineering company as well as owning another precision engineering company until 1980. I do charity work now thus helping others less fortunate who rely on such assistance. Servicemen are particularly at risk and next-of-kin need assistance. I have been to the United States about nine times to attend seminars on the Battle of Britain. These lectures have taken place at the Air University and the Command and Staff College of the U.S. Air Force base at Maxwell Field, Alabama. There has always been a Luftwaffe ace alongside. I also spoke at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.-all very well organized.
Regards,
Hist2004
Interview by Jon Guttman
More than 60 years have passed since the Battle of Britain raged over south-east England. In the summer of 1940, Royal Air Force pilots flying Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires fended off the threat of German invasion by air and sea, for which Prime Minister Winston Churchill said of them, with more than a little justification: "Never in the course of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few."
One of these airmen, William Dennis David, had the unusual distinction of becoming an ace even before the battle, as a Hawker Hurricane pilot during the campaign in France. He returned to England with valuable experience to share with his colleagues at home for their coming struggle with the seasoned airmen of Adolf Hitler's Luftwaffe.
JG: How did you come to join the RAF?
David: I was born in Surbiton, Surrey, on 25th July 1918. At age 14 I left school to become a trainee with an uncle who was the managing director for a large clothing warehouse in London. I'd had five years with him and was going very well, when he told me, "See, Dennis, the Germans might attack us, and I suggest you think very seriously about joining one of the services."
By the time I was a teenager in the 1930s, Britain had fought a war about every 20 years. We'd had the Boer War; we'd had the Great War. A lot of us were keen to join one of the services to show we'd be ready in case the next war broke out. I had always loved horses but unfortunately when I tried to enlist in London, the cavalry regiments had just taken over tanks. So I thought the next best thing was the air force. The Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve was just starting up, and I joined up and later was granted a short-service commission.
JG: Were you at all influenced by the exploits of the aces of World War I?
David: Yes, to an extent, but we didn't think we were good enough to be like those people. The Royal Air Force trained us in our spare time and our weekends to fly, and that was marvelous. From the time I made my first solo, my mind was completely fixed on flying. I joined the regular RAF in 1937, and it was more than I thought it would be. They were great chaps in the air force. It was good to spend one's late teenage years with those people-they were magnificent. It was a worthwhile life.
JG: Did you feel that you were well-trained when the war began in September 1939?
David: Yes, I'd had 200 hours on my own Hurricane when the war came. They tended to have one pilot who kept his own airplane-he cleaned it, saw that it was maintained and ready for a quick take-off, and that's half the battle. Each pilot was very proud of his airplane, as you can imagine. Unfortunately, the Germans started picking us off. We lost to many in France. The biggest problem we had during the Battle of Britain was not a shortage of pilots, but a shortage of experienced fighter pilots.
JG: Your assigned Hurricane, L1630, seems to have lasted a long time.
David: Yes, it was a lovely airplane-I got very fond of it. There was a small No. 87 Squadron pennant with a snake on the vertical stabilizer and a Welsh dragon, my old family crest, which my fitter painted on the door beneath my canopy in Lille. My ground crew saved that door after the L1630 crashed, and it is still available for people to see at a museum in Shoreham, Kent.
JG: Were you at ail surprised d when war broke out?
David: No, we halt expected it. The Germans had been taking countries all over Europe and at that point we knew they'd be coming at us. After Britain declared war on 3rd September 1939, 1 had only a week w ith my squadron in England, and then we were out in France, on 9th September. We first went to a lovely place called Boos, near Rouen, where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake back in 1431. We saw very little of the French air force. It seemed they'd left to us to guard northern France.
JG: What was the general feeling among the British when you went to France?
David: We were confident. The British Expeditionary Force was made of first-class troop, with what we thought w as good equipment, but in fact it was very outdated. And we'd -had years of training in World War I fighter tactics, but when we fought World War II it was quite a different sort of thing. It sounds crazy, but most of the Fighter Command tactics we learned were, I think, suicidal. We flew in thick, tight formations and we never looked behind us, so the Germans could pick us off whenever they wanted to. The Luftwaffe fighters tended to fly in a fluid finger-four formation, never flying straight and level, swaying and moving their airplanes around, at the same time looking behind themselves. We soon learned from the Germans-not so much imitating them as copying them-and that is why the Battle of France was important as a rehearsal for the Battle of Britain.
JG: About when did No. 87 Squadron start incorporating the German "finger four" into its tactics?
David: Very quickly after 10th May, when it all blew up in France and things became very complicated. By about the third day we'd learned all those new tactics and we flight leaders were encouraging our boys to be behind us, weaving around and looking behind us, instead of flying in tight formations to impress the enemy-when in fact they were no more impressed than my Aunt Fanny.
JG: You were credited with damaging a Heinkel He-111 of 2nd Staffel (Foto) of Aufklarungsgruppe (reconnaissance group) 122 over Poperinghe early on 2nd November 1939. What were the circumstances of that clash?
David: We were based at Lille at that time. The Heinkel was on a reconnaissance mission and we were sent after him. I was hit myself and Pilot Officer Chris Mackworth's plane was so badly damaged that he was forced to land. The He-111 was a very good bomber, actually. They used to have very good rear gunners and their pilots seemed to know what they were doing a bit more than in other German bombers.
JG: Was that encounter your only action during the "Phony War" prior to May 1940?
David: Well, we were flying as much as we could scrounge, often covering the "leave boat," which went from Calais and Boulogne to go to England to drop servicemen going home on leave. We had a lot of training to do and we had a lot of newcomers to train. We were trying to improve ourselves all the time.
JG: Did you have any contact with the French, who had been having a number of aerial clashes with the Germans in their sector to the southeast?
David: I didn't see any of them at all in the north. I met one or two personal friends, such as Jacques Allez, a Capitaine or Commandant who was a very nice man from Paris. They shot down a lot of German aircraft around Paris, and had we had to face those during the Battle of Britain, England would have been in even worse straits. The French did awfully well with what they had, but a lot of their equipment was out of date, too.
The French also had political rows going on all the time. Worse, they had this crazy idea that their Maginot Line would be impregnable, when actually the Germans simply went through and around it in one day. That was a tremendous shock to French militarythey didn't believe it. But the Germans had that relentless strategy of theirs, the Blitzkrieg. They sent their dive-bombers in first and immediately followed up with their tanks. They were professionals at war and we were amateurs-that sums it up. We had to learn from them.
JG: When was your next serious encounter with the Luftwaffe?
David: That was on 10th May as the Germans invaded the Low Countries. It was an ordinary day-we went down near the Maginot Line to have a bit of practice and to see if we'd get some operational flying, but suddenly, the news came through that the Germans had started their advance. I had just been briefed to do a sector reconnaissance when they called me back. And then, on the way, a flight of German bombers suddenly came across our Hurricanes at an airfield near Metz. I doubt if they expected us there any more than we expected to find them. As I was coming down to land, I saw what I thought were trees, but they were bomb bursts. After that, I took off again and I ran into the formation of German bombers. I came in from the stern at high speed, firing all the time as I got close and an He-111 burst into flame. Then I turned around to have another go at the rest of the flight, but it had broken up.
My No. 2 had shot down another one. It was sheer luck, reallyit wasn't planned or anything. Then, I went back to base, for I really had to get some more ammunition. On the next sortie I ran into Dornier Do-17s, shooting down one and sharing in the destruction of another. The Dorniers were much easier to shoot down than Heinkels, but they tended to keep bunched together so their rear gunners had maximum firepower. The Germans were very well disciplined, but they did not expect us to be as aggressive as we were. After the war, one German bomber pilot remarked to me: "I once told [German fighter ace Adolf] Galland, `These Brits are different-they're shooting us down.'"
JG: On the very next day, you got another double-a Junkers Ju-87B Stuka of Sturzkampfgeschwader 2, as well as one of three Do- 17Ms of Stab (staff squadron)/StG.2 that were overseeing the Stukas' attack, all three of which were destroyed in that action. What was your impression of that fight?
David: Six of us found about 40 Germans dive-bombing a camp, which we thought might have been a hospital. The Ju-87 was quite an easy aircraft to shoot down. It wasn't as fast or as manoeuvrable as the Hurricane. The Do-17 was also a relatively easy one-actually, nothing was really easy, but I did as Air Marshal Keith Park used to tell us: "Get in, get your chap and get out."
We shot down 14 in all and drove the raiders away, but as we were on the way back from that, 150 more came across. We were never overawed by the Germans, never frightened by them, but we were a bit outnumbered. You couldn't really hang around to claim anything, because the 109s [Luftwaffe fighter aircraft] were around to pick you off, too. By then we were learning.
JG: On May 12, you were credited with your fifth official victory, making you an ace in just three days. What do you recall of that occasion?
David: I do remember that one quite clearly. It was over Lille, an He-111 was quite high up and I know I got him because I had oil all over my windshield. I thought he'd shot my engine out, but in actual fact it was German oil-his oil tanks had burst. And with that, their undercarriage always fell down. When I first went to France, I never thought I'd be an ace, but gradually you get more and more proficient at it. As far as being an ace went at that time, however, we didn't have time to think about it.
JG: On 16th May you had your first run-in with Me- 109Es, from I Gruppe, Jagdgeschwader 27 (I/JG.27). How did you fare against them?
David: We were vaguely looking for them, but three of them came down on us. By that time, we were emulating their tactics, flying in a finger-four, and we broke. The great thing about the Hurricane was that you could sling it over into a steep turn. If you can out-turn the brutes, then you're halfway there. My wingman stuck with me the best that he could. I was firing at anything that came my way, while trying to fight my way out of it. I was hitting somebody-I was credited with one destroyed and I'm sure I got two others, but we didn't have a chance to confirm them. It was very quick, rather like all air battles-the sky was full of airplanes fighting together and then, suddenly, there was not an airplane to be seen.
JG: On 18th May you damaged two Me-109s and then, on the 19th, you were credited with shooting down an Me-110 and teaming up with two others to shoot down an He-111, as well as downing another Me110 and an Me-109 that were unconfirmed. Who was with you in that day's fighting?
David: I don't remember who my wingmen were. By then, Gary Nowell had had a very nasty crash and badly injured his leg. He went into hospital and by the time they took the bandages off his leg, they found it covered in maggots. The doctor said, "Thank God." Maggots only eat the putrid flesh, you know, so he was saved from gangrene. He went back to England and he was fighting again very shortly after that.
The Me-110s were being used for special flights and they rather thought they were better than they were, initially, but the 110 was not a difficult aircraft to shoot down. I later met Major Wolfgang Schenk, who led the Me-110 fighter-bombers at the end of the war, and he told me that the 110 was good in the anti-shipping role, but it was not much good as an escort. The Me-110s later made brilliant night fighters, but as day fighters they were useless. They used a defensive circle, so their front guns and their rear gunners could cover one another and their crews were obviously concerned about our Hurricanes, but speaking for himself, Schenk told me, "A leader must never show his fear."
JG: Even taking the confusion of those days into account, you had quite a combat record from neophyte to "old hand" in nine days.
David: Yes, and being a 22-year-old "old hand" is a very funny feeling, as you can imagine. But on 20th May I crashed my airplane and was sent home in a hospital plane.
JG: Were you badly hurt?
David: No-dead tired, actually, I hadn't really slept in nine days. They were really withdrawing me to rest and then train new pilots for the fight to come. I was told when I got over there that my dear old Squadron No. 87 would most likely be on the south coast of England, but it would have to be reformed in the north, with new airplanes and pilots. So I went out to Leeds and rejoined my squadron. I received a new Hurricane, P3404, and I did quite well in that one.
JG: How did you react upon learning of France signing an armistice for all practical purposes, a surrender-on 22nd June?
David: At that point, we knew the Battle of Britain was coming. I know this much, too. When the French capitulated and we were on our own in England, I'd say there was a feeling of relief. It was terrible to lose France, but we felt, "Well, now we can really get at it."
JG: How ready did you feel Britain was for the onslaught to come?
David: Air Marshal Hugh Dowding was a very wise customer. He said, "Keep them worried all the time. Get at them when you can, but keep your fighter force intact if you can, for I've got to protect England." He knew the odds he was going to face, which we did face, six-to-one-and even up to 20-to-one odds, sometimes, in France. But we never felt beaten by the brutes. Certainly outnumbered, but we always had a go. I think we were a bit more determined than our German counterparts. I know in my case, my mother lived in London and I couldn't stand the buggers with the black crosses coming over to London and bombing it-so I got very aggressive. A very ordinary man changes quite a lot.
JG: No doubt about the RAF pilots' motivation, but what about their proficiency?
David: We were training the new boys as fast as we could-many of them were 18 years old, just out of school. They were no match for Galland and his veterans. We had to take them in hand and try to get them to fight effectively as soon as possible. After about a month of training, No. 87 Squadron was at Exeter, on the south coast. Nobody ever feels ready, but I was very worried about the standard of the pilots we had. They were very willing and wonderful chaps, but I wished they had more experience.
JG: When was your next action?
David: On a Sunday, 11th August 1940, off Portland Bill. There were fuel tanks there and the Germans were trying to bomb them. We went after them and I shot down a Junkers Ju-88A. The Ju-88 could take a lot of punishment, and I had to really hit it. Then Me-109s attacked us and John R. ****, who had already downed a Ju88, got an Me-109 and two probables before he was shot down. He went to hospital that night because a fragment of his radio went into his arm, but he rejoined us in September.
Later on, while they were salvaging his Hurricane from the sea on 30th August, 1983, **** confirmed that I had shot down another airplane. I didn't know it. I had aimed at one of the 109s trying to shoot Johnny in his parachute-it's awful to see a 109 trying to shoot a man in his parachute. It was hardly a one-second burst, but it must have been deadly, because he saw that chap crash straight into the sea, 10 miles southeast of Portland.
The Germans did damage to the port, but not major damage. We'd try to get their leaders if we could, but it was always a matter of getting in a shot or two while you could, then you upped your neck and got in a dogfight with a 109 determined to kill you.
JG: What were the circumstances of your next success, on 15th August?
David: That was another easy one, a Ju-87 one mile east of Portland Bill, and I also probably got an Me-110. The Germans were paying a lot of attention to the Southampton area at that time. We were making Spitfires there, and there were also our radar towers-they were always bombing those. You never knew what target they were going on to. Soon after that, the Luftwaffe tried night bombing over Cardiff and we were kept up late trying to intercept them. It was in actual fact a waste of time, because the day fighters just could not see the airplanes at night without radar. It was dangerous, too, trying to take off and land in the dark.
JG: Your next fight seems to have been over Portland Bill again, on 25th August.
David: It was Ju-88s again, trying for the fuel tanks a second time. I remember being in the bomber formation and I was shooting at one and I heard an awful noise as one exploded. They were being knocked off, but they stuck to their formation-they were very brave boys. Me-109s intervened again, but as usual I immediately went into a steep turn-that way, at least you knew what was coming at you and by the time you completed your turn you'd be on his tail. I sent one of them down three miles northwest of Portland. If we could get the 109s on their own, they were easy meat.
JG: On 15th September, the RAF confronted a major Luftwaffe bombing effort over London, resulting in 31 British and 59 German aircraft shot down-a German defeat that the British commemorate as Battle of Britain Day. What did you contribute to that day's tally?
David: I downed a lone He-111 three and a half miles south-west of Bolt Head, and it proved to be the first of the day. He was a weatherman on a reconnaissance flight who never got home. I got between him and the clouds, because once they made it to the clouds, they got away. I then made the usual attack from the rear and saw the wheels falling down. It ditched in the Channel and I later learned the Germans sent out some floatplanes to try to locate it, but they couldn't find it anywhere.
JG: Didn't you leave No. 87 Squadron after the 15th September action?
David: I went to Tangmere the very next day, to command B Flight in No. 213 Squadron. We did quite a bit of fighting from there. I was only credited with one, but that was a very interesting thing. It occurred on 19th October, when the Luftwaffe was sending in what we called intruder raids to annoy us. I caught a Ju-88 four miles north of Manston and popped off a lot of lead into him, but he still flew-I couldn't understand it. I flew alongside him and could see the pilot crouched over the column. I knew the rear gunner was killed because nobody was manning the guns, but I had no more ammunition left and the coast of France was coming up, so I thought it was time I went home. My last victory was subsequently confirmed because the Maquis, the French resistance, sent a message back to London, reporting how the shot-up Ju-88 crashed on the field, and saying, "Send us back more like this one." That was at about the end of the Battle of Britain, though we didn't know it at the time.
JG: Why do you think the German air offensive failed?
David: Goring was a funny old chap, but he was being fed all kinds of funny information from his fighter boys, about how they had shot down so many of us, when actually they hadn't. He was also not being told the number of them that we were shooting down, so both Goring and Hitler thought that they were winning the war. The Germans' biggest mistake, though, was in not keeping up the pressure on our fighters. When they pulled their attacks off our airfields and began to bomb our towns in early September-I know it was pique on the part of Hitler and Goring-that's when they lost the war. They were doing jolly well until then.
JG: After transferring to No. 152 Squadron on 23rd November, you became an instructor at 55 Operational Training Unit in March 1941. Was that the end of your combat career?
David: Well, the OTU is worth some mention, because we had this place where we could send the pilots so we could pass on all the experience that we could give them. That gave the lads a lot of confidence. I did, however, fly Bristol Beaufighters with a night fighter unit, No. 89 Squadron, for a year.
JG: What was the Beaufighter like?
David: It was a lovely aircraft, but difficult to fly because of the powerful engines. You had to be very careful to keep her straight. It killed a lot of people, but it was a great fighter, very powerfully armed.
JG: Did you ever get to try a night interception using radar?
David: No-1 was lucky. Once the Germans became active in North Africa, the squadron was sent out to the Middle East. After things improved in the Middle East, the squadron was sent to Burma. We only downed one Japanese plane the whole time-one of my chaps got that one, a big flying boat that was flying over Columbo, Ceylon. It didn't expect the Beaufighter to be there, and it was shot down. The only other interesting thing was when I captured Akyab Island.
JG: You captured Akyab? By yourself?
David: On New Year's Day 1945, I was flying over it in a Stinson L-5 and a white flag appeared and the natives waved me down to land. The Japs had just left, on 31st December. So I had the pleasure of having captured Akyab. When I got back to the base, we got the British commander to cancel the terrific bombardment and invasion that was scheduled for the next day.
In actual fact the commander contacted Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was our theatre commander, and obtained his permission to do this. I flew Lt. Gen. Sir Philip Christison to the Akyab beachhead the next day, where we were able to welcome his own XV Corps troops as they came ashore-minus the bombardment.
JG: You continued your career in the RAF after the war, retiring in May 1967. Were there any highlights during that time?
David: I was air attache in Hungary during the 1956 Uprising. The Hungarian Freedom Fighters were magnificent chaps.
JG: What did you do after retiring from the RAF?
David: I was the company chairman and director of an engineering company as well as owning another precision engineering company until 1980. I do charity work now thus helping others less fortunate who rely on such assistance. Servicemen are particularly at risk and next-of-kin need assistance. I have been to the United States about nine times to attend seminars on the Battle of Britain. These lectures have taken place at the Air University and the Command and Staff College of the U.S. Air Force base at Maxwell Field, Alabama. There has always been a Luftwaffe ace alongside. I also spoke at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.-all very well organized.
Regards,
Hist2004