They also fought for Britain, coming as they did from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, the United States, South Africa, Belgium, Canada, Free France, Ireland, Jamaica, Palestine, Holland, Newfoundland, and Southern Rhodesia, many speaking little or no English, at least when they arrived and relatively little thereafter. But they shared the common wish to fight and defeat the German enemy and to do all they could to help the British keep that enemy out of England. They helped preserve the country as the primary base for the British and, eventually, the American bombers that would carry the war to German targets and cities in the great strategic round-the-clock bombing campaign. Many of these foreign airmen had left their homelands to escape Nazi occupation, most had left family and loved ones, often suffering considerable hardship in their struggles to get to England. None of them knew if or when they would ever return to their native countries and see those they had had to leave behind. But they all knew full well why they come to England.
New Zealander Al Deere had been the middle-weight boxing champion of the Royal Air Force and had the broken nose to prove it. Hailing from Wanganui. The tall, well-built Deere had a legendary appetite to match his enthusiasm and his flying ability, and was nearly always among the first at the breakfast table. He was truly one of the best of the best, and like his best friend, fellow New Zealander Colin Gray, since his teenage years he had no greater ambition than flying in the RAF. He had applied for a short-service commission and was among the first dozen to be accepted from the first 2,000 applicants.
As far as he was concerned, the Battle of Britain had begun with Dunkirk. For Al, the battle actually began on 23 May 1940. His squadron, No. 54, had returned to Hornchurch that morning after encountering no enemy aircraft on their dawn patrol flight. After a late breakfast, Deere was asked by Squadron Leader James Leathart to meet him and Johnny Allen out at their dispersal immediately to do a flight over to Calais-Marck on the French coast and pick up the CO of 74 Squadron who had been forced to land there with engine trouble. Leathart would be flying the two-seat Miles trainer Al and Johnny would be escorting him in Spitfires. They intended to cross the Channel at sea level and hopefully avoid German fighters. When he landed at Calais-Marck, he would keep the engine running while the two Spits orbited the field. The trip across was uneventful and when they arrived over Calais, Al told Johnny to orbit the field at 8,000 feet and guard against their being bounced by enemy aircraft, while he would orbit low to protect the Miles. But when Johnny got to 8,000 feet he shouted over the R/T: “Al, they’re here. About a dozen Huns below me and heading towards the airfield. I’m going in to have a go at them.” Al said he would try to warn Leathart not to take off.
The Miles had no R / T. All Al could do to warn Leathart was to waggle his wings and hope the Squadron Leader got the message. He didn’t, and began his take-off run in the Miles. A Bf 109 fighter appeared over the runway and opened fire on the training plane as Al chased the German into a turn. Just then, Johnny called him to say that he was surrounded and needed help. Al told him he would be right up to help as soon as he killed the bastard in front of him, which he then did when the German pulled up and gave him a near perfect shot. The burning 109 fell onto the beach. Al then noticed to his relief that the Miles appeared safely parked near the airfield perimeter fence.
As Al climbed to come to the aid of Johnny, he encountered two more 109s. He manoeuvred into firing position behind one of the German fighters, put a long burst into it and watched bits come off as it fell to earth. Al then chased the other fighter but found that his ammunition was exhausted when he tried to fire. The German then ran for his base.
above: New Zealanders Colim Gray and Al Deere came to England to fly with the RAF in the Second World War; below: A Polish fighter pilot, one of many who chose to fly with the RAF, on the wing of his Spitfire at RAF Northolt in 1942.
Johnny called Al to say “I’m just crossing north of Calais but am rather worried about my aircraft. I can’t see any holes but felt hits and she doesn’t seem to be flying quite right. I’ll make for the North Foreland at my present height of 8,000 feet. See if you can join up.” When they met up, Al inspected the other Spitfire and decided that Johnny could probably make it back to Hornchurch, where they both later arrived safely. Leathart and his passenger arrived moments later in the Miles and told them how they had watched the overhead air battle from the comfort of a ditch near the Calais-Marck airfield boundary. Leathart: “When I left the ground I saw from Red One that something was amiss. Almost at once a 109 came down and began firing at me. I pulled around in a tight turn and saw the Messerschmitt shoot past me. I banged the aircraft on the ground and left the cockpit quickly, my passenger and I diving into the safety of the ditch which ran along the airfield perimeter. Then we saw a 109 come rushing out of the clouds to crash in a huge explosion a few hundred yards away. Right after that another 109 blew up as it hit the sea to our left. From the comparative safety of the ditch, we caught brief glimpses of the dogfight as first a 109 and then a Spitfire came hurtling through the cloud banks and screamed upward again. It was all over in about ten minutes and, when it seemed safe, we made a hasty take-off and a frightened trip back to England.”
Later in the Battle, Deere: “This was the time when 54 Squadron should have been moved out of the line for a rest. Without a squadron commander, only four survivors with any experience of leading a flight, and no other pilot really up to the standard required to lead a section, the squadron was in an extremely bad way. It was a grim situation not made any easier to bear by the move out, on that very day, of 65 Squadron to a northern airfield for a rest. Once again 54 Squadron was to act as guinea pig for the blooding of the new squadrons being brought into the Battle. In the twenty-one days since our return, I had not been off the airfield, except for one unhappy night in hospital, nor had any of the four leaders on whom the squadron now depended. Indeed, the mess by daylight was an unfamiliar sight—when dawn broke we were already at dispersal, and it was after dark when we returned to the mess. The strain had almost reached breaking point. The usually good-natured George was quiet and irritable; Colin, by nature thin-faced, was noticeably more hollow-cheeked; Desmond, inclined to be weighty, was reduced to manageable proportions; and I, although I had no way of knowing how I appeared to the others, was all on edge and practically jumped out of my skin when someone shouted unexpectedly over the R/T. But still we continued to operate—there was no alternative.
“In the late afternoon of August 28th I was airborne at the head of the squadron for the third time that day; the now familiar gaggles of 109s were our inevitable playmates. In the melée that followed the first attack, I was once again on the receiving end—but this time of a Spitfire’s guns. I had fastened on to the tail of a Me 109, one of three in close line astern formations, and was trying to close in to firing range, when a Spitfire dived in from above and pulled around behind me. I clearly saw the RAF roundels as, fully banked in a steep turn, the aircraft was silhouetted against a blue sky. ‘Good, he’s coming in to give me a hand,’ I muttered into my mask.
“Imagine my surprise to find that I, not the three 109s ahead of me, was the subject of his wrath. Before I could do anything about it, he had found his aim and I was riddled with a burst of fire which struck the fuselage and port wing, cutting my rudder control cables and seriously damaging the port elevator. One burst was all he allowed himself before breaking down and away underneath me. It was all over in a matter of seconds, but even in that time the 109s had made good their escape, no doubt encouraged by the support afforded them!
“I throttled back immediately and, by so doing, was able to keep going straight and level, but at a very reduced speed. There was practically no elevator movement and, of course, I had no rudder control. What was I to do? Stick with the aircraft and try a landing or do the sensible thing and bale out. I decided on the latter course, influenced by the fact that my radio was dead, and I was above a considerable amount of cloud and therefore unable to position myself in relation to an airfield. Also, there was no way of really knowing how serious was the damage to my fuselage and whether or not I could maintain elevator control at the lower and more turbulent altitudes. Any misjudgement on the approach requiring the use of throttle would certainly make the aircraft uncontrollable.
“There was to be no rolling onto my back this time. I made up my mind to take a header over the side in the conventional way, having trimmed the aircraft as best I could to maintain an even course.
“Thus it was that I found myself swaying in my parachute at 10,000 feet over Kent, with my abandoned Spitfire diving away to destruction somewhere below me, and my thoughts wandering back over the years to my childhood.
“There was a feeling of splendid isolation as, snugly held in my parachute harness, I swayed gently to and fro high above the cultivated acres of Kent which stretched out below me, here and there flooded with warmth as the slanting sun rays pierced the broken cloud from whose vaporous interior I had just emerged. To one side I could see the long straight stretch of highway from Canterbury to Gillingham—the Watling Street of earlier happier days—and on the opposite side a dark broken line marked the edge of the North Downs along whose edge the early Pilgrims had trudged their devout way to worship at Canterbury. In the distance, Detling airfield was plainly visible, a cleared space in the wooded area which sat astride the roadway that ran from Maidstone to Sheerness.
“The descent from 10,000 feet took about fifteen minutes and thus there was plenty of time to ruminate on the past. Also it afforded me an opportunity to practise side-slipping in my parachute. It was as well that I practised this manoeuvre for it enabled me to avoid a farm-house towards which I was blown on the last few feet of my descent. I missed it by inches and landed instead astraddle a plum tree in an adjoining orchard. Apart from a few scratches in unpleasant places, I was unhurt.
“ ‘Stay where you are, I’ve got you covered,’ an angry voice reached my ears. Startled, I peered through the plum-loaded branches and straight down the barrel of a shotgun held in a business-like manner by an irate farmer who occupied the key position at the foot of the tree. In amazement and not a little afraid, I gaped at him. Finding my tongue, I said in most precise English, ‘I’m British,’ hoping that he would not misinterpret my New Zealand accent as belonging to a German trying to pretend he was English. Fortunately he didn’t. ‘Oh, I thought you might be a German, and I wasn’t going to take any chances. Did you have to choose my prize plum tree in which to land? I was saving that crop.’
“In the course of extricating myself and my spread-eagled silk canopy from the tree, a great deal more of his prize crop fell to earth, much to his annoyance. I feel sure that had I been a German, he would have let me have both barrels. As it was, he grudgingly allowed me to use his telephone to contact Detling airfield from which a car was sent out to pick me up.”
The twenty-three Polish pilots of 303 (Kosciuscko) Squadron flying from RAF Northolt, were wholly contemptuous of the assignment they had been given on Friday afternoon, 30 August 1940. At 10,000 feet, north of the city of St Albans, in Hertfordshire, their Hurricanes were to rendezvous with six Blenheim light bombers to execute dummy attacks on them. Having all been trained for two years with more than 500 flying hours each, and having come to England and the RAF specifically to kill Germans, they took a dim view of the exercise.
As one of them, F/O Ludwig Paszkiewicz, watched, a Hurricane went plunging downward towards a cluster of smoking rooftops. Paszkiewicz looked up and, at about 1,000 feet above his squadron, saw a large dogfight under way between Me 109s and a number of British fighters. He called his joint commander, S/L Ronald Kellett, “Hullo, Apany Leader, bandits ten o’clock!” There was no response, so Paszkiewicz went to full boost and roared up into the fight. The spirited Poles had nearly everything in their favour except for command of the English language, and because of that, they had not yet been granted fully operational status in Fighter Command. In fact, Kellett had indeed heard the warning from Paz, and had muttered a reply, “If you want to be a hero, be one.” The Pole climbed and managed to get one of the slim German bombers, a Dornier Do 17, in his gunsight. He fired until the starboard engine of the bomber burst into flame and one of the German crewmen baled out before the plane dived to earth. That evening the impressed Kellett telephoned Headquarters, Fighter Command at Stanmore, to say, “Under the circumstances, I do think we might call them operational” and the next day 303 Squadron was duly reclassified. And after 31 August, Kellett was the first to admit that 303 Squadron was doing the work of two squadrons, in a month in which pilot wastage was nearing 120 men a week. In six weeks of non-stop combat, 303 destroyed 126 German aircraft for the loss of just eight of their own pilots. The war correspondent Dorothy Thompson, writing in the New York Times: “The Poles are pure courage.”
Second from left, Group Captain Johnny Kent, a Canadian, led the Polish pilots of 303 Squadron at Northolt in 1940.
Thirty-year-old Adolph Malan was the stand-out of the twenty-three South African pilots who flew in the Battle of Britain. Malan had served for some time before the war aboard the ships of the Union Castle Steamship Line and was ever after known as ‘Sailor.’ Many came to believe, with some justification, that he was greatest RAF fighter pilot of the war, possibly the greatest ever. Sailor discovered that the four Browning machine-guns of a Spitfire, firing 1,260 rounds a minute, had the firepower equivalent of a five-ton truck hitting a brick wall at sixty miles an hour.
On trips into London, both Sailor and Al Deere tended to leave their DFC medals back at the base, so modest were they. On one occasion, Sailor told the war correspondent Quentin Reynolds that he had never in his whole life read a book. “You see, I have no imagination. If I had any imagination, I’d have been dead by now.” Yet he produced one of the most cogent documents to come out of the Battle of Britain and the entire war—Ten of My Rules for Air Fighting, a poster of which had pride of place in most dispersals of Fighter Command and of the American Air Force the world over. It was the Ten Commandments that guided, and undoubtedly saved the lives of many British and American fighter pilots in the Second World War.
Sailor was a superb tactician and a great fighter leader with good, basic values who spent extra time with the newest, least experienced pilots in his command, showing them the ropes and doing all he could to keep them from making the kinds of mistakes that might get them killed. He was credited with downing thirty-five German planes in the war. At war’s end, he returned to his native South Africa where he helped organize a quarter of a million war veterans and others into the Torch Commando, a campaign to try to change the racist policies of the country.
South African Group Captain Adolph G. ‘Sailor’ Malan, of 74 Squadron, led the Biggin Hill Wing and has been acknowledged by many as the greatest fighter pilot in the history of the Royal Air Force. His Ten Rules of Air Firghting probably saved the lives of hundreds of Allied fighter pilots in the Second World War and since. He died in 1963 of Parkinson’s Disease, aged fifty-three.
Fifty years after he flew with 308 (Polish) Squadron in the Battle of Britain, Kazimierz Budzik was still the same keen-eyed, eager, smiling fighter pilot-type he had been in the summer of 1940, more than willing and ready to talk about his experiences in that bright blue time. Kaz had been commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Polish Air Force just before he had to flee the country and the Nazi invasion. He first went to France where he flew Dewoitine and Potez fighters from the Pol air base near the Pyrenees until the fall of the country in June. With French help he was able to reach Casablanca and then Gibraltar from which he was finally able to sail to England. After reaching Liverpool, he entered RAF training and was then posted to 308 (Polish) Squadron on Spitfires. He came from Kraków originally, so it was most appropriate that he was made a part of 308, the City of Kraków Squadron, based at RAF Northolt. The primary mission of the squadron was bomber escort and low-level fighter sweeps over France.
For Budzik, service with the RAF was two operational tours of duty and a massive number of dogfights, strafing attacks, night-fighter patrols, dive-bombing missions, and bomber escort missions. He achieved at least twenty kills and probables, but it was the doing itself, not the credit for the doing, that really mattered to him. His recollections of air combat with the squadron were expressed with candor, especially about their impatience and over-excitability: “We always, always opened fire much too early. The English seemed to have more patience and self-control, waiting until they got in close or manoeuvred into the best position before opening fire.” The Poles flying in their 308 Squadron mostly used Polish in their brief R/T comments. “Most of us knew little English and, in any case, if in a tight corner or shouting a warning of danger, we’d be fumbling around for the right English words and someone would have soon been dead. You had to do it before you had thought about it.”
One young Pole, P/O Jan Wiejski, posted to Budzik’s squadron, simply didn’t possess such lightninglike reactions, so Kaz told him: “Look here, why not see the CO about a transfer to another squadron? You just won’t make it otherwise. Bombers, or Coastal Command, perhaps, is your thing.” Wiejski knew Kaz was right, but he would not change; he’d see it through. “We were escorting bombers, but the operation just didn’t go properly to plan. On the way back we saw a group of Fw 190s. I was one of the last in my section of six aircraft and, watching the 190s, we didn’t see another group of them coming from behind. Suddenly, something in my mirror. A flash. Instinctively, I swerved and pulled around tightly toward our attackers and was head-on to about ten, maybe twenty, 190s. The next few seconds were spent just trying to survive. I did, but the rest of my flight—five aircraft in all—were shot down. Among them was Jan Wiejski. It was his first operational trip. He didn’t stand a chance.”
In the D-Day invasion on the Normandy coast of France, 308 Squadron was assigned as an element of the 2nd Tactical Air Force and was deployed in the ground-attack/support role. They were now flying Spitfire XIVs equipped with cannon and bombs and there was considerable satisfaction for the pilots knowing they were delivering real damage to the enemy. “I flew what must have been dozens of flights during the struggle for the Falaise Pocket. I don’t mind admitting to a feeling of glee and excitement because, on the ground, I could see Jerries by the score looking up at me …terrified. Some of them had their hands above their heads as I roared over them. I remember thinking, ‘Now you bastards. How do you like it?’ It was a different story in 1939, though. They showed Poland no mercy then, but here they were now, begging for it. It was a wonderful experience.”
Around the time of the invasion, 308 Squadron’s Spitfires were being equipped with a new gyro gunsight. The remarkable innovation greatly increased the accuracy of their shooting. It made automatic corrections for deflection and mostly eliminated human error—but not Polish impatience and excitement. “They fitted these sights, but they never trained us how to use them. Instead, we had to find out for ourselves. For air-to-ground work, no problem. You just put the dot on the target and simply hit it. You couldn’t miss. Of course, by this time, intervention by German fighters was comparatively rare. We just got on with our lovely job of bombing and shooting things up on the ground. Then, one day, there was a shout of ‘Focke Wulf’ over the radio. ‘I’ll get him!’ I called, diving after him absolutely flat out. He was in my sights. Rrrrrrrmmmp … nothing. Not a single hit. Problem was that these wonderful new gyro sights needed a second or two to settle. I hadn’t allowed for that. My impatience and excitement wouldn’t let me. But now the chase was on. Down on the deck we were streaking for Germany. I wouldn’t let him get there. No. Was that smoke or exhaust fumes I could see trailing out behind? Well, it soon would be smoke. In my sights … gyro settled now … fire! Nothing. All my ammo had gone in that first burst that had missed. But at least I had learned about gyro gunsights.
“After the invasion, we had been flying from Ghent in Belgium and were tasked to carry out a divebombing attack on Walcheren Island off the Dutch coast. As we approached the target a terrific amount of flak came up from all directions. When that happened, we learned that we could tease the gunners by holding off just out of range of their guns; then we’d judge the moment to dive when the fire had slackened off, or maybe we’d fool the gunners into thinking that we were going away. Often this ploy worked quite well. But on this occasion I remember I was trembling with fear. Everyone experiences fear, but for me the fear went once we had committed ourselves to the attack—although the trembling soon returned. I was leading my section in when suddenly wham! I quickly turned the aircraft around and, despite the damage, I managed to get it down in a crash-landing. Once I was down, everything seemed so quiet, and yet, as I got out of the cockpit there was the sound of a ground battle all around me—heavy gunfire, rifles, and machine-guns. I quickly got myself to a ditch and thought that this was not a good situation for a fighter pilot to be in. Then some civilians turned up. From a distance I shouted to them, ‘Go away!’ and waved my pistol to reinforce my request. I was worried that they might turn me over to the Germans. But then a woman among them shouted in English, ‘Are you British?’‘No, Polish.’ Back came the reply, ‘Down the road. We’re waiting for them.’ Once identities and allegiances had been established the civilians came closer and a man with a bicycle approached and said he’d take me to the British lines. I hopped on the bike and went off with him, but before I did, I produced my pistol again and told him I’d shoot him if he was taking me to the Germans. He didn’t, so I didn’t have to shoot him after all, and gave him cigarettes instead of lead.”
Dornier Do 17 medium bombers over England in the summer of 1940.
Bomb damage in London during the 1940-41 Blitz night bombing attacks by the German Air Force.