Where Are The Aces Now? - Battle of Britain Pilots

[Dave Homewood]

Where Are The Aces Now? One Of The Greatest Has Not Flown Since

(By David Mason)

HE snatches a tranquil moment sometimes to light his pipe and gaze up thoughtfully into the empty blue South African sky. He is stolid, greying and fifty; a veldt farmer thickening about the waist. He seeks no more than to be among his family, and to ride around his ranch by truck tending his 3500 sheep and 300 cattle. Adolph Gysbert Malan has found his quiet life.

His old colleagues of the pilot's duty room, the valiant and boisterous spirits who flew with him during those desperate hours, would smile good-naturedly if they saw him now.

With both feet on the ground, he might still be the chap who manages the bank across the street: a sober-sided, enigmatic, almost secretive kind of fellow not gifted in making friends easily: a fellow who hates noise and fuss, hugs his privacy, and never really thaws out in a crowd.

But they remember much better Wing Commander (“Sailor”) Malan, Commander of No. 74 Squadron, and the greatest Battle of Britain fighter pilot of them all —the cockpit wizard who never made a wrong move, once he was airborne over Biggin (Battle of Britain) Hill with Spitfire JHA and the old magic began to work. He was the top-scoring Battle of Britain ace with at least 34 “kills” to his credit, the D.S.O. and Bar. the D.F.C. and Bar, the Belgian Croix de Guerre.

A Lone Mission
At gay reunions, when the half-forgotten tales of grim courage come crowding back, they remember him all the more because he is rarely there. They talk of the time he took off alone over Southend, into a night alive with British flak. The raiders had nearly got him with their bombs, and he meant to have them.

Grimly he clung to their tails in the murderous sky; and, one by one, finished them off with cold surgical precision.

When "Sailor” led out No. 74 Squadron at 4.30 next morning, for the first sortie of the day, not a soul among them knew that he had been out on a lone death-dealing mission two hours before. There is so much more to remember, for "Sailor” and the friends he rarely meets. There was his characteristic remark to Group Captain Douglas Bader, as the unequal battle began to hot up: “I'd rather be perpetually scared than perpetually bored.”

There was the cold, apparently emotionless killer streak that so few of them could understand, watching “Sailor” aloof from the fun at rowdy mess parties . . . except the few who knew of his secret hate, his private vow of vengeance.

It had happened during the first week of the war, when valiant resolve outstripped experience and planning. "Sailor" Malan, airborne with his squadron on one of the first scrambles, had been directed by ground control to two "raiders” over the Thames. They had shot down one of them—then realised too late that it was one of their own Hurricanes. Malan brooded over the wasted young life. He would make the Germans pay dearly for this. And he did.

He depicted the grim game to his pilots as six men, all with knives, in a darkened room. Your drill was to stab one of them dead, then get out fast before the others could reach you.

Results, Not Stunts
Malan taught his team accordingly (“Results, not stunts”)—and it worked. But he remained the maestro. They watched breathless as he took on whole bomber formations and Heinkel squadrons; turned his Spitfire in a circle so tight that it looked impossible. A myth was born that "Sailor” had once lured three Nazi planes to watery graves by encouraging them to dive on him, then pulling out just in time to watch them plunge to their deaths. And, myth though it was, it had a core of truth. “Sailor” Malan had once followed down in a steep dive an Me 109 he had just shot up—then realised only just in time that its pilot was dead and heading for the sea, and he was following. He managed to pull out. The experience added a valuable new escape trick to his repertoire, tough though the strain of such dives was on his hard-punished body.

They stared incredulously in the mess when “Sailor” Malan told them that he tried to crack-up the enemy bombers just enough to get home, their rear-gunners and navigators slumped dead inside. That way, he argued, the Germans could really see what the R.A.F. was doing to them.

He meant it; he was ruthless. But, however long the day (and once, at the height of the Battle of Britain, it was fifteen flying hours long, during which time he met 1600 enemy aircraft) “Sailor” always included a word of praise and encouragement for his pilots in his meticulous combat report. When the fighting day was reckoned to be over, he would go off alone to find and despatch four or five more raiders, just to round things off. When he returned at last worn-out and with bits of enemy aircraft embedded in his wings, he forgot it all and had eyes only for the small waiting figure of his mongrel dog Peter.

His New Fight
But when at last the storm abated and the war was over, it left “Sailor” Malan no battle-happy veteran reliving old glories. Now he would find the peace life had denied him. His childhood had been a tough, rope’s-end life aboard a training ship off Cape Town. He had ventured round the world at sea for ten years before he joined the R.A.F. in 1936.

Now, with his English wife Lynda and his two young children Jonathon (a godson of Sir Winston Churchill) and Valerie, he could go home and forget. And so he did, for a short time: first as private secretary to Mr Harry Oppenheimer, the millionaire gold and diamond magnate, then more completely on his own 30,000-acre farm in the Kimberley diamond fields. But soon “Sailor” Malan knew he had to fight again. During the war he had developed a passionate regard for the devoted courage of his serving fellow-country-men. Now he believed he saw a threat to the liberties for which he and they had fought.

Dynamic Leader
South Africa’s Prime Minister, Dr. Malan, his distant cousin, proposed a bill to put coloured voters on a separate electoral roll. “Sailor” was bitterly against this Nationalist move—and was soon saying so in typical action-packed style. He led a 60,000-strong torchlight parade against the segregation bill. It was one of the biggest political demonstrations in the Union’s history; with “Sailor” Malan, half-reluctantly, one of its most dynamic leaders. His “torch commando” movement spread like veldt bush-fire. Soon, a thousand ex-servicemen and women were being recruited every day. They had badges to wear, torches to carry, slogans to shout.

Then, when the thing had a momentum of its own, he faded quietly out. Two years ago. sadness tinged "Sailor” Malan’s first visit to Britain since the war. He thought he had Parkinson’s disease. a serious nervous disorder, a legacy of his war-time stress. He was in London not only to look up old friends and places but also to consult leading specialists. They staged a rip-roaring welcome for the greatest fighter pilot of them all: a guard of honour at the airport, of some of the Few who flew and fought with him. There was to be a party at which he would be the V.I.P.

But "Sailor,” typically, was terrified when he heard of the plan. He wrote and begged them to call the whole thing off. He revisited Biggin Hill; drank again in an English pub, and allowed himself a nostalgic moment or two with a museum-piece Spitfire and a Hurricane. And at least “Sailor” Malan left England a happier man. The doctors did not pronounce the death-sentence he had feared. It was not Parkinson’s disease, they told him, but a brain inflammation—the result, nonetheless, of the long nervous strain of fighting for survival in the skies.

When he left, he was almost fit once more. “Now I am really going to live again,” he said.

In August, 1960, "Sailor” Malan scented danger again, and re-entered the confused South African political arena to speak against Dr. Verwoerd’s proposed Republic. There is always another battle ahead, when your name is "Sailor” Malan. They missed him badly, at the 20th anniversary celebrations of the Battle of Britain in London the following month. When they put through a telephone call to him from the R.A.F. Club, everyone tried to shout down the receiver at once when word spread that “Sailor” was on the line. But “Sailor” Malan was never the man to cherish the past. Since the war, he has only once been in the cockpit of an aircraft—when a friendly airline pilot invited him and he did not like to refuse. And five minutes was enough. The only piece of bravery he readily admits to (“the bravest thing I ever did”) was asking Churchill to be Jonathon’s godfather, one day at Biggin Hill. More than some heroes, he has avoided a war-fixation. It is enough, sometimes, to gaze up into the empty South African sky.— (Copyright. Central Press, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.)

PRESS, 16 SEPTEMBER 1961

paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19610916.2.73

[Dave Homewood]

Where Are The Aces Now? "Ginger” Lacey, One Of The Immortal "Few”

By DAVID MASON

YOU would never take him for a hero as he potters in his garden among his roses: a short, thick-set man of 44, with thinning blond hair and a ginger moustache.

You would never know he was a hero if you waited to be told by Flight Lieutenant James Harry Lacey, D.F.M. and Bar, regular R.A.F. officer and Senior Operations Officer at Bampton, a few miles from the Yorkshire village of Flamborough. He never wanted glory. It is enough now that life has an ordered calm at home with his three daughters and the wife he met as a wartime Wren on a troop-crammed boat sailing for India.

Sometimes, nevertheless, when he is airborne—cruising blissfully in a tiny, droning Chipmunk—it is not war on green-fly that he remembers; he is Flight Lieutenant James Harry Lacey no longer. He is young Sergeant Pilot Jim (“Ginger") Lacey, of the immortal Few.

It is not a remembered name, even among those of his own generation. It has not the intrinsic magic of those other illustrious names —Battle-of-Britain aces like Paddy Finucane, “Sailor" Malan, Douglas Bader, Johnny Johnson, Stanford Tuck. Yet there is no braver name to remember. At one stage of the momentous battle that changed history, in those summer skies over Kent 21 years ago, “Ginger” Lacey had shot down more Nazi planes than anyone else. His Hurricane's blazing guns had bagged 25 enemy aircraft for certain, during the battle and before, with several more “probables" to add. He was, for some time. Fighter Command’s top scorer of them all.

And who, the same year, shot down the Heinkel that bombed Buckingham Palace and then had to bale out himself? He will never tell you so, but it was “Ginger" Lacey.

False Start
And if you ask this happily obscure serving officer why all the glory passed him by, he has no ready answer. Why did fame settle inevitably about the shoulders of the others, but not on his? Was it because he was a sergeant-pilot and they were officers? He merely shrugs. He never wanted glory. What he did want, from the start and pretty badly, was to fly. And after a brief false start learning to be a chemist in his home town of Wetherby, Yorkshire, he found his chance in 1937.

At 19, he joined the R.A.F Volunteer Reserve. He found congenial work with Yorkshire Airways; but soon, on the outbreak of war in 1939. he found that his kind of young man was both badly needed and in short supply. He knew flying inside out. He even knew about Hurricanes. Before long he had been posted to the County of Gloucestershire Squadron to fly them against the Germans. And on May 13, 1940, on his very first encounter with the enemy, “Ginger" Lacey made the significant discovery that, when it came to lone aerial combat, he had the edge on other men.

Flying from France, he and two more pilots were to make a routine patrol at dawn. But a cold engine delayed him, and he missed the other pilots. He found himself over Sedan, where there had been a big German break-through. Then, below and ahead, he suddenly saw Nazi aircraft for the first time: a Heinkel bomber and, above it, a Messerschmitt 109 fighter. He roared down on the Messerschmitt, guns blazing, but fired wide.

He tried again. Incredibly, they still had not seen him. This time he got in really close (a dangerous but effective tactic that he swore by for ever after). The Messerschmitt exploded practically in his face. Then he roared down on the Heinkel and sent it plummeting to disaster, too. On his return, “Ginger” was sent out again at once, to join battle with colleagues against a flight of ME110 fighters. He bagged another one, and his first day ended with his score at three.

He had made it four by the time the Battle of Britain flared into stuttering murder in July—an ME109 escorting convoy-attacking Nazi bombers. Already among his fellow-pilots on a Dorset airfield, this pale, quiet, independent young man was notching up a considerable reputation. It grew to epic stature, during the desperate days that followed. “Ginger” Lacey, like every one of The Few, needed every last ounce of fortitude and sheer dogged courage to face the relentless demands on his skill and nerve.

Now switched to Kent, he roared off the airstrips hellbent 44 times during 13 August days alone. He grew so tired, he recalls now that unless an Intelligence Officer was awaiting him for interrogation when he returned, he slept where he slumped, under the wing of his Hurricane.

Under Pressure
Inevitably, the blaring loudspeaker announced another “scramble” soon. “Ginger" Lacey grew to hate the sound of that loudspeaker: he was even sick when he heard it. When he felt that he needed leave, and asked for it, he was told that he could not be spared. He was pleased afterwards—he knew that if he had weakened and gone he would never have flown again.

His score was growing. He sent a dive-bombing Stuka into a fatal dive over the Thames: then another almost immediately after. More than once, be nearly paid the price for his stubborn determination to get in close before he fired.

It worked, though. Nobody could deny that. Time after time, be got in his short burst at a 50-yard range, then saw glycol streaming from a stricken Nazi aircraft —and watched it plunge down, hopelessly out of control. He was almost hit by flying ailerons and bits of shattered Nazi engine. And still his score grew.

Then, on September 13, “Ginger” volunteered to try to intercept some of the enemy aircraft that were slipping into Britain under cover of low cloud. He knew before he started that he would probably not be able to land in the murk, and would have to bale out.

Was Spotted
Control led him to a Heinkel, getting out fast after its raid. But this time the Nazi rear-gunner had seen him first, and bullets tore through his Hurricane. Miraculously, none touched him. He just jabbed his finger on the firing button and held it down hard. He did not bale out until he had seen the Heinkel screaming down past him, it’s engines on fire. His parachute put him down near Maidstone, and near the crashed Heinkel. They managed to keep him in hospital for one day to give his minor injuries a chance. Then they told him that he had bagged the aircraft that bombed Buckingham Palace.

So the furious days wore on—three destroyed and one damaged two days later; then, in September, parachute-dangling again. This time he had tackled single-handed a formation of 15 ME109’s and one of them blasted off his aircraft’s tail.

Many another time, hardly less vital bits of his Hurricane were missing when he got it precariously back. And he was “Ginger” Lacey, D.F.M. and Bar, by the time his Commanding Officer, at a special ceremony, presented him with the first Australian-made parachute to reach Britain. It was the gift of girl workers in a Sydney factory for “The pilot who brought down the Heinkel that bombed Buckingham Palace." The C.O. smiled as he handed it to him, together with a white scarf autographed by the girls. Lacey might find it of use, he said.

Commissioned
The desperate days of the Battle of Britain ended at last, and “Ginger,” flying a Spitfire, found himself harrying the enemy in sweeps across the Channel and along the French coast. He accounted for another Nazi bomber and another three fighters. He was commissioned. As a flight lieutenant, he was set to work imparting to new pilots the fine points of his own effective technique. Many a later veteran of the war was to, preface a mess argument on combat tactics with an unanswerable “Well, Ginger Lacey used to say . . .”

Then “Ginger" went to India, as a wing commander with a Spitfire squadron of his own. Hawk-eyed, he scoured the skies above the dense Burmese jungles, high above the advancing Fourteenth Army. Only once did he have the good luck to meet a Jap fighter. Of course he shot it down. And so his score for the war stuck at 28.

The Flight Lieutenant of today (peace-time, regular) is not- entirely chairborne. He is trained to fly the mighty Hunter; good going for 44. when flying is more than ever a young man’s game.— (Copyright. Central Press, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.)


PRESS, 23 SEPTEMBER 1961

[Dave Homewood]

Where Are The Aces Now? Fine Record Of “Lucky” Alan Deere

(By DAVID MASON]

THREE times he was shot down: nine times he had to bale out. But he always escaped to fight again. No wonder they called him “Lucky." He is a V.I.P. of a very different kind nowadays: Deputy Director of Personnel (Air) at the Air Ministry in London, and recently appointed A.D.C. to the Queen. At work in Whitehall he is a chairborne senior officer of 43. Relaxing in his pleasant home at Windlesham, Surrey, with his wife Joan, his son John (13) and his daughter Jacqueline (15), he is a devoted family man. He is, as he always was, the steadiest and most even-tempered of men. But sometimes, for a fleeting moment, his colleagues see a flash of the old Irish in the eyes of Group Captain ‘ Alan Christopher Deere, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar.

Sometimes, for a moment, they see another man altogether: Al (“Lucky”) Deere, of the immortal Few, the man the Germans couldn’t kill: officially credited with 21 Nazi aircraft destroyed, nine probables, and 19 damaged. Even then, during those desperate Battle of Britain days 21 years ago, young Al Deere was liable to be two men. One was the gentlest, mildest-mannered of souls; the other was a rugged New Zealander with a useful dash of Irish in his blood, as tough as his crisp hair and chunky profile made him look. It wasn’t a bad mixture, for a man who had to battle daily for his life in the blue skies over Kent during those valiant days of 1940. Indeed Al Deere, from Wanganui, New Zealand, could hardly have come better equipped to the arduous, exacting task of flying Spitfires against the Germans.

Footballer And Boxer
He was one of six sons raised by a Tipperary man who emigrated to New Zealand and took to farming. Alan found agriculture dull from the start; but he emerged hard as nails from his husky bush boyhood, a crack boxer and Rugby footballer.

One day In 1937, when he was 18, he spotted an advertisement in his local newspaper offering short-service commissions in the Royal Air Force. He applied at once, and was among the first dozen selected from 2000 New Zealand candidates. He could hardly wait to reach England and begin. Soon he was flying Gladiators; then, after Munich, his first Spitfire. When war flared across Europe he found himself unspectaculariy engaged at first, patrolling the French and Belgian coasts.

Queued At Dunkirk
But at Dunkirk one day he flew for eight and a half hours, and “bagged” three Nazi fighters. Then his Spitfire was shot down near Ostend, and he had to use a relay of four abandoned cars to reach Dunkirk and queue with the retreating armies for a place aboard a destroyer. With the massive onslaught of the Battle of Britain, things really began to hum for “Lucky” Deere, a blooded veteran already with five Germans to his credit.

In July he survived a staggering adventure, after he had shot down an ME109 and had been attacked by 12 more. The Messerschmitts surprised him momentarily by an unexpected move—splitting into two formations and turning inwards on the small section which he led.

Swiftly, Al Deere gave the order “Break! Find your own targets!” And soon he saw his: an ME coming straight for him, dead ahead. It was an old game of nerves, holding your fire until the other man's nerve broke and he veered away. But this time the Nazi came straight on; and as the gap closed at terrifying speed both fuselages were riddled with bullets.

Engine Hanging Loose
Clearly, collision was inescapable. Al braced himself as the great shadow spread to blot out his vision. He felt a sickening thud; and in the din of tearing metal everything seemed to crack and bend at once.

Then the great shape was gone; and somehow, as if it had passed right through him, he was still alive and flying. But Al Deere knew at once, even before he saw his whole engine hanging loose, that his Spitfire was hopelessly wrecked. Flames and smoke began to stream back from his engine cowling; soon the cockpit was chokingly full. He tried to wrench the hood fixture open, but it was too badly twisted to move. For five minutes he glided down, and braced himself for the big bump. When it came, it was a series of bumps, as he careered across a field, snapping off anti-invasion posts as he went. Then, with the flames raging around him, he smashed with all the strength in his boxer's fists at the Perspex hood. It didn't budge. Was he to be burned alive?

Again and again he battered at the rounded canopy; and at last it broke. Just in time, he stumbled clear to watch his Spitfire become a blazing wreck.

A month later he again missed death narrowly when his plane was shot-up and he had to force-land.

Three days later, he had to bale out when he shot down a Messerschmitt and five avenging Germans chased him over the Channel. By the end of 1940 (and the Battle of Britain) Deere had shot down 15 Germans, had won the DFC and bar, and had survived by a near-miracle more times than he cared to remember.

Many of his old friends had disappeared from the mess. Among their replacements he became a legend—“ Lucky” Deere, the man no Nazi could kill. 

It was a tough reputation, but Al Deere, one of New Zealand’s toughest exports, was the man to live up to it. And so he did, leading his famous wing into battle from Biggin Hill day after day. As his personal total rose, so did his reputation as one of Britain's most experienced fighter-pilots. Some aces might be temperamental; and who could blame them? But everyone liked to know genial Al Deere, who saved the Irish in him for the enemy.

Only Three Left
When it all ended Al Deere had baled out nine times and had been shot down three times. He had seen the original establishment of his famous 84 Fighter Squadron dwindle from 17 to only three, including himself. After the war he served in Malta for a time, then returned to take up duties at the R.A.F. Staff College, Bracknell.

The battle's fury has left scars not only on Al Deere's body, but on his memory, too. Those who talk to him now find no hero eager to relive old battle glories, but a reflective man all too conscious of the futility of war. Would he do it all again? he was asked recently. “If somebody were to point a finger and say ‘go’ I probably would,” he replied.

“Probably,” his friends would say, is a slight case of English under-statement. And Group Captain A. C. Deere, D.S.O., D.F.C. and Bar, is the first to admit that he has become thoroughly anglicised. Since the war he has returned for only a few days to New Zealand; yet he remains fiercely proud of his New Zealand birth. But it’s the Irish in him that has been luckiest for “Lucky” Deere. (Central Press Features. Ltd., London. All Rights Reserved.)

PRESS, 30 SEPTEMBER 1961

[Dave Homewood]

Where Are The Aces Now ? Messerschmitt's Wing Cut Off

(By DAVID MASON)

MAC’S guns were empty, his fuel low—and his quarry was almost home. But he wasn’t going to let it get away. He cut off the ME’s tail with his own wing. He is a chairborne Wing-Commander of 45 now, with an office deep in the file-stacked fastnesses of the Air Ministry in Whitehall, far from the nearest jet engine’s roar. But not every file in his office concerns the matters of R.A.F. organisation and administration that comprise his present job. One, on his desk, lists the young men who fought a desperate battle for Britain’s survival in blue skies over Kent 21 years ago. And it lies open.

September is a month for remembering, when your name is Kenneth William ("Mac") Mackenzie. True, others remember too. Any one of the brave, resourceful fighter-pilots who survived those murderous skies has as good a reason as "Mac” Mackenzie for remembering, whenever the Battle of Britain anniversary comes round. But September for this survivor means something more specific. It means the days towards the end of the month, during the final dying frenzy of the Battle for London, when he first pointed the nose of his Hurricane fighter towards the white clouds and the marauding Messerschmitts.

Still Talked About
And it means the day of a fantastic adventure that put his name in the exalted annals of The Few: an adventure they talk of still, whenever they gather to share beer and memories. This was the day when he sliced off a Messerschmitt’s tail with a precisely-calculated flick of his wing-tip. It had been no surprise, to anyone who knew Mac, to hear in 1941 that he had pulled off one of the most brilliant aerobatic feats of the Battle of Britain, and had been awarded an immediate D.F.C.

The career of this genial. generous, rich-brogued young Irishman had been shaping towards something of the kind for a long tune. Even before he left school in Belfast his father, an Irish doctor, and his English mother had seen the way things were heading. At 16, while he was still a student at the Methodist College, young Kenneth's consuming passion for flying had led him to qualify for his “A” pilot's licence.

Star Pupil
And in July, 1939, as war loomed, he took time off from engineering studies at Queen’s University. Belfast, to thrill a Belfast crowd of 50,000 with a display of daring aerobatics that proved him one of Britain’s most brilliant young pilots. He was congratulated by Government V.I.P.’s and presented with a silver cup for being the best all-round pupil at Belfast’s flying school. It looked as if young men like Mackenzie were going to be needed very soon.

They were needed, before the summer had ended. And when war broke out in September Mac, as a member of the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve. soon found himself in England, taking a refresher course to equip him for flying modern fighters. Then, just in time to catch the last furious onslaught of the battle, he joined the County of Gloucester Auxiliary Squadron, No. 501, at Kenley.

And soon there came the day, when lingering alone in the clouds after an interesting but routine dog-fight, he found himself involved in the most amazing duel of the war.

Five For Sure
It had been an unusual fight in one sense. The Germans had been outnumbered. Seven close-huddled ME 109’s, heading back across the coast from London, saw two Hurricane squadrons approaching head-on. It had been a desperately mixed-up free-for-all. Mackenzie had swooped down to bag one fleeing 109, and to watch it turn turtle and crash into the sea. That meant five for sure, between the two squadrons, with another two probables claimed. The whole enemy formation wiped out, with luck. One after another, the Hurricane pilots began to drift off towards home. But Mac climbed into the sky. Soon he heard the Controller’s voice over his radio. There were more Messerschmitts flying in. Reckoning their course, Mackenzie headed inland. Perhaps he could intercept them. If so, he could have them all to himself.

Eight To One
His plan worked spendidly. Soon he saw eight ME 109’s; mere dots on the horizon. Climbing towards them, he managed to manoeuvre himself into the finest strategic position a fighter-pilot could hope to achieve: slightly below and behind the formation. Now all he had to do was to pick them off with one brief ripping burst of fire along the belly. But something ruined his aim; and at this point Mac started getting mad.

A lone Messerschmitt, zigzagging in the rear, got in his way. Mackenzie gave him the burst all to himself, and could tell from the smoke and mess that he had not missed. The rest of his prey took the hint and scattered; he had lost his beautiful massed target now. What was worse, the zigzagger had not crashed. It was losing height, but still heading somehow towards the French coast and safety.

Another Burst
Mac close on its tail, really saw red now. He gave it another burst, and saw his bullets smashing home. And another. The ME 109 was belching smoke and glycol now, and flying low as it crossed the coast. But still it kept on. Mackenzie was puzzled. His other six victims had plunged straight for the sea, once he hit them. This one seemed indestructible. He was almost within wing-tip distance of his enemy now. He could see the ME’s pilot staring ahead. He tried one last burst, but it was no good. He had run out of ammunition. Soon he would be out of fuel too.

Yet he must first bag this maddening adversary. What else could he try? Then Mac remembered his aerobatics. At first he thought of trying to hit the ME 109 with his undercarriage. Even if it got hopelessly smashed he could limp home and attempt a belly-landing. But he found that when he lowered the undercarriage his speed dropped and he lost his prey.

One More Trick
Retracting the undergear, he sped back on to his victim’s tail. There was only one other trick to try, he decided —a chancy, dangerous trick. He would have to edge in really close and smite the Messerschmitt with his wing. At least he would have surprise on his side, and he would be able to brace himself against the impact. And if he kept his propeller clear, and landed his blow on the German’s tail unit, he ought to be able to knock it clean off.

He approached the ME 109 from the left, and could see its pilot peering at him, wondering what came next. The German was almost home; he would soon be safe. But Mackenzie, edging in with meticulous care, was positioning his wing-tip ten feet above the ME’s tail. Then, against all the rules and all his instincts, he jerked the stick over violently; and the plane shuddered as it took the force of the calculated mid-air collision.

Out Of Fuel
Mackenzie was dangerously low: and dangerously near being out of control. But when he looked down he saw that the ME 109 had no tail. Then he saw it hit the water and sink. And out of the empty sky tore two more ME’s, firing as they came. His guns were useless and his engine was on fire. It was time to go home. Mackenzie only just made the Dover cliffs, twisting all the way to avoid the scathing fire.

As the last bullets thumped into his plane he realised suddenly that his engine had stopped. He was out of fuel. He crash-landed his battered Hurricane on a gun-site, damaging his face and losing several teeth.

In the next year Mackenzie’s war ended, when he was shot down over France and taken prisoner after spending 12 hours in the sea. Afterwards, he resumed his RAF. career; a flier still. He was chief instructor at the Meteor O.T.U., Stradishall, from 1950 to 1952; then an operational wing-commander in Egypt and Cyprus. In 1956 he took up operational training duties at the Air Ministry; last October he took on his present bigger job.

Grounded By Order
Until a year ago, Mac was flying regularly, mainly Ansons and Canberras. He was stopped only by a new order, terminating continuous flying for Air Ministry officers. Characteristically, he has found another action-crammed outlet in motor-racing. Since he took up this sport four years ago he has competed in many major British events; and has achieved, he says too modestly, “a fair amount of success.”

One September after the war, it was Kenneth Mackenzie, D.F.C. (then Squadron Leader) who was chosen to carry the R.A.F. ensign to the high altar of Westminster Abbey for the Battle of Britain Thanksgiving Service. Now it is September again: time to remember, at home with his 13-year-old daughter in Northwood, Middlesex, or reminding himself of the names in that file on his desk (he is honorary secretary of the Battle of Britain Association). Memories are not hard to find in September, when your name is “Mac” Mackenzie. (Central Press Features, Ltd.. London. All rights reserved.


PRESS, 14 OCTOBER 1961

[Dave Homewood]

Where Are The Aces Now? Adolf Galland A Famous Nazi Airman

[By DAVID MASON]

HIS eyes remain a hunter's eyes, keen and alert. His hair is still untouched by grey, and he wears his moustache with its old rakish military trim. Unlike most thickening-around-the-middle Battle of Britain survivors, this man at 49 might almost be an active fighter pilot still. There is little doubt where his heart lies, as he is seen year after year at Britain’s Farnborough air display, nosing around among the sleek new fighters; sitting in cockpits, trying out controls, jotting down performance statistics of training aircraft.

Memories of the desperate 21-year-old sky battle are all very well. This brave, gifted German has hundreds of them; he can exchange them by the hour with famous fellow-aces like legless Douglas Bader. But he has not resigned himself to memories yet. Typically, when, he first saw the Gnat, the world's first-high-speed light fighter, at one recent Farnborough show, he asked at once to be allowed to fly it.

Adolf Galland is the pilot with the biggest battle-tally of all. Against his amazing background of personal achievement, it is hardly surprising that for several years now this age-defying virtuoso of war has been backed strongly as the man most likely to take charge of Germany’s new Luftwaffe. But Galland, apart from an occasional desultory denial, does not talk much of his possible future role in the West German Air Force.

He has no more time for the future than for the past; the present is all-absorbing. It is enough to be busy and among aircraft at the world's air shows, his beautiful dark-haired wife, the former Countess Sylvina Doenhoff, by his side. Or at home in Neuss, near Dusseldorf; or in his city office, a hard-working civilian industrialist like thousands more.

Expert Adviser
Adolf Galland has found a new way of serving Germany: as an expert adviser to the Government, helping to build the aircraft industry. He is not indulging nostalgic fancies when he clambers into the cockpits of new aircraft: soon after he inspected a 10-seater Hunting Percival trainer at Britain’s Blackbushe Airfield the German Ministry had ordered 33 of them for £2.000,000.

But Galland knows he can never shut off his past completely, or for long. Two years ago it caught up with him in typical fashion, when he came to London around the time of the Battle of Britain 19th anniversary. At a gay party in Mayfair he sat chatting with Douglas Bader at the launching of a new organisation both were admirably qualified to join: an International Order of Characters. "That man—he is marvellous.” Bader told other guests “I shot down 22 German aircraft in the last war. His record was quite fabulous; and I say that as an R.A.F. pilot.”

Galland has to admit it. His staggering total was 104 British fighters shot down over England, the North Sea and France: 80 of them during the Battle of Britain.

Youngest General
He was the Luftwaffe's youngest general at 29. He was shot down twice over occupied France, and congratulated personally on his escape by Hitler. Before the war ended he was Goering's senior officer of the Luftwaffe and held every possible German decoration; the Iron Cross with oak leaves, with Knight’s insignia, with oak leaves and stars, and with oak leaves, stars and diamonds.

Yes. Adolf Galland has memories. They begin, when he lets them, a long way before the crucial, valiant days of the Battle of Britain: in a boyhood that could hardly have been better planned for the moulding of an ace Nazi fighter pilot. Galland was the son of a wealthy estate bailiff, descended from a French Huguenot. He learned to fly in a local gliding club, and made his first solo trip at 17. Once he had known the ecstasy of flight, there was no question of his doing anything else with his life. They were opportune days, in Germany, for such aspirations. Before long young Galland found himself being slipped secretly into Italy, in disguising mufti, to be trained as a fighter-pilot for the darkly secret Luftwaffe, away from prying international eyes. Then, when civil war raged in Spain, he was seconded there to fight with the Condor Legion: the “rehearsal for World War II" he called it.

And Adolf Galland was already a blooded veteran when he met the inexperienced young British pilots who were The Few, from behind chattering guns, in the fateful summer skies of 1940. He knew every trick, right from the start; he has even claimed since that the R.A.F. copied one or two from him. He was in the thick of it from the first, with his wing the 3rd JG26, flying from a heavily camouflaged airfield near Guinea, just behind the French Channel coast.

The story of Galland’s many encounters adds up to something like the story of the Battle of Britain; no British ace will ever be sure how many times he duelled for life with this incredible man. On the very first day of the fighter phase of the Battle of Britain, Galland was in action with his wing over the Thames Estuary, fighting convoy-protecting Spitfires. Swooping down with surprise on his side, he clung to a Spitfire’s tail as it tried to twist clear, got in a long lethal burst of fire, and saw it plummet down towards the water. He followed it right down, and noted that its pilot's parachute had failed to open.

Technically, Galland had won this first engagement: two ME109’s lost against three kills confirmed. What mattered far more was the healthy respect he had gained for his less-experienced adversaries of the R.A.F.

Argued With Goering
It was continuous action after that. There could never be too much action for Adolf Galland, eager and skillful, filled with aggressive spirit and the passion of the hunter. Soon he was rising fast in the Nazi hierarchy, and competing day by day to beat the score of his chief rival, the famous Werner Molders.

From his side, he shared all the agonising human problems of The Few. He too saw the devastating effects on strong men of prolonged physical and mental strain. He too saw friend after friend disappear, to be replaced in the mess almost daily by unfamiliar new faces. After a month of non-stop dog-fights, it was clear that things were not going too well Galland was ordered to Berlin to see Goering on his lavish estate: and it shocked him, hot from the Channel battle, to see the peaceful, prosperous pattern of German life.

The war seemed to have touched people hardly at all. Money was being splashed about everywhere, theatres were crowded every night. To crown all, Goering seemed to have nothing but reproaches and criticisms of the fighter pilots who were risking their lives hourly for him.

Asked For Spitfires
At last Galland would stand it no longer. When the fat Reichsmarschall asked what he needed for his squadrons, he replied: "I should like an outfit of Spitfires.” (He went one better later, and threw down this Iron Cross with diamonds on the table in front of the fulminating Goering).

During August, the first massed fleets of Nazi bombers began to drone over London. For Adolf Galland, desperate mid-air encounters became daily and almost hourly routine. One day, returning from London, he spotted a formation of twelve Hurricanes, and tore down on them like lightening from behind. He was almost upon one of them before he emptied his guns into it, and saw huge chunks of metal fly away. Then, just in time, he lifted his nose, leapfrogged the stricken aircraft— and tore on right down the middle of the enemy group, firing at almost wing-tip range as he went. There was no return fire. Audacity had paid off. As he flew off. he saw two parachutes drifting far below.

Stuck In His Mind
Another time, he shot up a Hurricane so badly that by all the rules it should have nose-dived to destruction. Yet somehow, although ablaze, it did not; but glided gently down, its dead pilot still sitting in his cockpit. Three times Galland and his comrades attacked, but failed to make the Hurricane crash. It was as though, he said, it was piloted by a ghostly hand. Somehow, the incident stuck in his mind. Perhaps it symbolised for him, during those nerve-racking days, the invincible spirit of the young opponents he could not knock out of the skies.

The Few fought ‘bravely and indefatigably.” Galland has said since. “They undoubtedly saved their country in this crucial hour.” But the shortcomings of the ME109 were fast becoming apparent to Galland and his men. Because of its short range, five machines had to make pancake landings on the French shore during a single sortie; and seven landed in the sea. All the time, they had to cross the Channel before the fight even began—and save enough fuel to get back afterwards. The R.A.F. men were on home ground; for a German baling out would mean the end of the war.

On September 24 Galland had his fortieth victory, and he was ordered to Berlin again to be decorated by Hitler. But his heart was heavy. The Battle of Britain was as good as lost. The morale of his hitherto jubilant men was at its lowest ebb ever.

Taken Prisoner
Soon afterwards, the Battle of Britain was lost, shatteringly. But Galland, whether or not he then realised its significance, had filed it already among his memories. There was a war to fight elsewhere. The following summer Wing Commander Douglas Bader was shot down in a skirmish over the Pas de Calais, and arrived at Galland’s station at St. Omer clamouring indignantly for his tin legs. It was a meeting of giants. All was smiles as Adolf Galland invited Bader for a meal; allowed him to sit in the cockpit of his Messerschmitt and to tour the installations. They were to meet again later: in Britain, after Bader had escaped and Galland had been shot down at last and taken prisoner.

After the war, Adolf Galland spent five years abroad, as technical adviser to the Argentine Air Force. Then, when returned to Germany, the speculation about his future in the new scheme of things began. Galland takes no part in it. By his record, and whatever his beliefs, he is clearly no office-hungry politician. There is a job to hand, and he is content to be at work. Whatever else he becomes, he will remain always what his old foe Douglas Bader once called him: "a brave man.” (Central Press Features, Ltd., London. All Rights Reserved).


PRESS, 21 OCTOBER 1961

[Dave Homewood]

Where Are The Aces Now? Group Captain E. McNab Noted Canadian

(By DAVID MASON!

HE is 55, greying and tied to a desk in Vancouver now; exactly the kind of dependable, efficient administrator you would expect to find behind some sleek and flawless piece of organisation. It is no surprise to learn that Group Captain Ernest McNab, D.F.C., plays a leading role in Vancouver’s civil defence organisation —a job he has held since he retired from the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1957. To his job as transportation, distribution and shelter officer, he brings much the same sort of efficiency that he showed during his wartime service days.

And there was once a time when efficiency meant everything to McNab, the difference between life and death in desperate, wheeling battles in England's summer skies. Efficiency won for him three records during those valiant Battle of Britain days of high summer, 1940.

He was the first Canadian pilot to shoot down an enemy aircraft during the Second World War. He led the first Canadian fighter squadron to serve overseas. He was one of the first three Canadian fliers of the War to be decorated by the King.

Somehow, McNab’s memories have a way of beginning with those battles. Yet, unlike many of the other Battle of Britain pilots, he was no fresh-complexioned youngster hardly out of school. He was in his thirties already, a skilled and experienced pilot, when he added his mite to the history books.

Ernest Archibald McNab, the son of a Lieutenant-Governor of Saskatchewan, had been in the Royal Canadian Air Force since 1928. He had joined after graduating from the University of Saskatchewan with a B.Sc. in civil engineering. He had been in Britain before: for two years, just before the War, on exchange duties with the Royal Air Force. When France and the Low Countries fell, the No. 1 (Fighter) Squadron McNab commanded had only just arrived in Britain.

At Croydon, the sprawling airfield on London’s outskirts, his mechanics were still uncrating their Canadian-built Hurricanes. camouflaging them, adding the squadron markings. His pilots, eager but unblooded, were still training daily at the Air Fighting Developments Unit at nearby Northolt when the big German onslaught began on August 8.

Then, as a commander may he stole a march on the impatient youngsters. While they trained and fretted, he attached himself and one of his flight commanders to the R.A.F.'s III Squadron, to get in a little battle experience before he led his own crews into those angry skies. He got it fast enough. On his first afternoon up, August 15, 1940, he flew with Squadron II to intercept a big formation of Dornier 215 s with escorting Messerschmitt 109s.

They met the enemy over Dover. Swiftly, the snarling dog-fight moved to the Thames Estuary, leaving a lace-like pattern of tracer in the blue sky. When it was all over they had bagged three Dorniers, and probably damaged several more. One of the destroyed aircraft was credited to McNab. He had drawn first blood for the Canadians, and shown them his mettle as their new formation leader.

Laconic Report
In his combat report he wrote so laconically of Canada’s first aerial blow of the War that he almost made it sound easy. “I was Blue Two and took off at 1530 hours to patrol Beachy Head. The two enemy bombers Do. 215 were sighted flying in close formation at 18,000 feet eastwards along the Thames Estuary and I did a stern attack on them, firing a short burst with no apparent effect before breaking off.

“On my next attack after the first burst, the rear gunner ceased firing and the enemy aircraft started to lose height. I followed him down firing. His engines began to smoke and he crashed in some marshy ground just west of Westgate-on-Sea. As my ammunition was used up, I returned to my base and refuelled."

McNab had set a fine example. But the Canadian pilots of No. I Squadron, during the frustrating days that followed, began to wonder if they were ever to find out for themselves. For when they became operational at last, on August 17, they remained at readiness for nine days at Northolt, "scrambling” time after time to intercept—nothing. They grew sick of the sight of the “ready” room, where they sat around as one of them put it "with telephones ringing in our bellies.”

Then, on August 25, McNab's browned-off pilots found themselves at last in the war. On their second patrol of the day, they were switched to meet a group of nearly 30 raiders — Dorniers and Messerschmitt fighters. A squadron of Spitfires zoomed in first, and drew off the enemy fighters. Then in went No. I for its Dorniers, with McNab leading them right into the sun in lines astern. They banked, changed formation. and swept down like lightning on their prey from 18,000 feet with guns ablaze. McNab got one of the bombers, but was forced down through damage. Another Hurricane plummeted down to crash with its pilot; a third was hit but landed safely. The score was three Dorniers destroyed and four damaged. As they winged their way back at dusk, the Canadians were cockahoop.

Massed Raids
September brought the massed raids on London: and again and again Squadron Leader Ernest McNab led his formation into full-scale battles that left them with smashed propellers, shattered windscreens, faces cut by flying perspex—and a growing score of enemy planes destroyed. By September 11, McNab’s personal score of enemy aircraft destroyed was already up to five.

And on the following Sunday, the 15th, he and his Canadian warriors took no mean part in the tremendous onslaught that marked the turning-point of the whole Battle of Britain. On this day the Germans sent over 500 aircraft, to deliver one last stunning blow on London. McNab’s No. I Squadron brought down 14 of them for the loss of two Hurricanes and one pilot. When the final Battle of Britain count was taken, the Canadians had made up for their late start by destroying 31 enemy aircraft—and probably many more—and damaging 28. They had lost 16 Hurricanes, but only three pilots.

Decorated by the King, Ernest McNab's became one of the best-known, best-respected names in the annals of Canadian flying. During his second tour of duty in Britain, from 1942 until the end of the war, he inspired many another young man to valour as Commander of Digby RAF Station. Afterwards, returning to Ottawa to occupy a desk as the RCAF’s Director of Personnel, he characteristically contrived still to find excuses for flying. To his new job he brought his same brand of efficiency. He played a leading part in planning the Canadian tour for Princess Elizabeth, England’s future Queen. Seven years ago, he was Canadian Equerry to Prince Philip on his flying tour from Ottawa to Quebec.

In 1957, McNab retired from the Air Force he had served so well, to join Vancouver’s civil defence organisation. It’s a job he regards as vital—although he hopes that its effectiveness will never have to be proved by war.

With a 14-year-old son. he finds civil defence work a long, demanding job that makes considerable inroads on his spare time. Fishing is just one of the sports he has had to curtail. Then, too, there is little flying these days for Group Captain McNab.

“After 30 years of being paid for flying, I found it pretty costly on a private basis,” he says wryly. Nevertheless, he still has an interest in Air Force affairs. He is a member of the R.C.A.F. Association and Vice-Chairman of the British Columbia Committee of the Air Cadets.

And still, when there is an aircraft’s drone on the wind, McNab’s thoughts fly back to that stirring summer in England 21 years ago. Each year round about this time, memories flood back to him —memories of his companions in the fabulous Few. (Central Press Features. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.)

PRESS, 28 OCTOBER 1961

[Deleted]

I saw the title and was going to suggest, sadly, a single word explains their current whereabouts. Interesting stuff Dave, thanks for sharing!

[flyinkiwi]

An interesting factoid about the author David Mason is that he wrote a book about Fast Jet Training in the RAF. For his research he sought and received permission to fly in the back of several RAF aircraft including a Tornado GR.1 and Harrier T.1. An excellent read.