One of the Few 2

October 1 Cont...... We lost one pilot that morning and knocked down about five Hun. I also forgot to mention that two days previously one of our best pilots just disappeared over the sea. He went up to chase a lone Hun that was making a condensation trail along the coast. The last that was heard of him was an R.T. message to say that he was on fire. Well, to continue the story, that afternoon A flight (I’m in B flight) went up to patrol Portland. Suddenly the flight commander looked round and saw a Me 109 formating on his last man and pumping lead into him. He nipped round and shot down the 109, but not before the 109 had got his man. This man was killed in the air and dived vertically into the sea. It shows how careful one must be to watch one’s tail...... That finished Wednesday’s operations. On Thursday we had a bad time. We were sent off to a raid on Southamton, but we were off late and only arrived when their bombers were crossing the South coast of the Isle of Wight on their way home. We were just about to attack when some Me 109’s came down on our tails. I did not see them at first, but the chap I was flying alongside saw one coming up under my tail. He whipped around and shot at it and probably saved me............ I was not able to get a shot in at anything, and for me and for most of the squadron the show was a failure. Some of our chaps managed to get to the bombers and I believe shot down three, but against that we had two pilots shot down in the sea. One was picked up with a bullet through the thigh and the other was killed. Friday was a good day. I set the ball rolling by finding a lone Ju 88 at 23,000 ft. I had a long running fight during which we came down to 50ft and skimmed the hills of Devon. I did continuous quarter attacks aiming at his engines and was able to hit both of them. Glycol streamed forth and I hovered around waiting. As I expected, both engines soon stopped. he made for the South coast of the Bristol Channel and landed about 20 yds from the beach in the water, running his machine up on to the beach. I circled around and watched the crew get out. They waved to me and I waved back and then hordes of civilians came rushing up. I watched the crew taken prisoner, beat up the beach and then climbed away. The place he came down at was Porlock and no doubt you heard that little engagement mentioned over the wireless on the news that night. Well, his rear gunner had landed a few bullets in my machine. One had penetrated the leading edge of my machine, going through the well into which the wheel was retracted and puncturing the tyre. One other had landed in the fuselage about 6 ins from my left knee. When I landed at the aerodrome I could feel the aeroplane slewing and swinging and tending to tip forward on its nose, but was able to pull off the landing O.K. in spite of a burst tyre.... The pilot of the German Ju 88 shot down this morning sent a message of congratulation on a very fine fight. He would like to meet me. This German pilot was also a pilot in civilian life..... There was a big show later on in the morning but my machine was still unserviceable and I had to sit on the ground. This was a successful show and the squadron knocked down another four and a half, the half being shared with another squadron. This was without loss to us. On Saturday we had nothing till the afternoon, when we were caught napping again by another of these offensive patrols which the Hun keeps sending over. One of our chaps was shot down but he made a forced landing. He is now in hospital with some chunks of cannon shell in his arm. We did not shoot down any Jerries. They mill around at about 30,00 ft and when they see us stoog underneath they send down two or three of their men to attack the last two of ours. They just nip down and nip up again before we can catch them, having a pot shot on the way.

On Sunday we had a quiet day. On Monday things began again. In the morning some of us (Not me luckily) became mixed up with another of thier offensive patrols which consisted of about 80 Me 109 and Me 110 fighters.We did not lose anybody, nor did we shoot down anything. In the afternoon we were sent off to patrol Portland . Soon we saw a large formation of enemy bombers arriving with a large number of Me 110’s as guard. We were just going in to attack when somebody yelled ‘Messerschmitts’ over the R.T. and the whole squadron spilt up. actually it was a false alarm. Anyway, being on my own I debated what to do. The bombers were my object, I snopped in under the 110’s and attacked the bombers (about 40-50 Heinkel He 111’s) from the starboard beam... I got in a burst of about three seconds when Crash! and the whole world seemed to be tumbling in on me. I pushed the stick forward hard, went into vertical dive and held it until I was below cloud. I had a look round. The chief truoble was that petrol was gushing into the cockpit at the rate of gallons all over my feet, and there was a sort of lake of petrol in the bottom of the cockpit. My knee and leg were tingling all over as if I had pushed them into a bed of nettles. There was a bullet hole in my windscreen where a bullet had come in and entered the dashboard, knocking away the starter button.Another bullet, I think an explosive one, had knocked away one of my petrol taps in front of the joystick, spattering my leg with little splinters and sending a chunk of something through the backside of my petrol tank near the bottom. I had obviously run into some pretty good crossfire from the Heinkels. I made for home at top speed to get there before my petrol ran out. I was about 15 miles from the aerodrome and it was a heart-rending business with all that petrol gushing over my legs and the constant danger of fire. About five miles from the drome smoke began to come from the dashboard. I thought the whole thing might blow up at any minute, so I switched off my engine. The smoke stopped. I glided towards the drome and tried putting my wheels down. One came down and the other remained stuck up. I tried to get the one that was down up again, it was stuck down. There was nothing for it but to make a one-wheel landing. I switched on my engine again to make the aerodrome. It took me some way and then began to smoke again, so I hastily switched off. I was now near enough and made a normal approach and held off. I made a good landing, tounching down lightly. The unsupported wing slowly began to drop. I was able to hold it up for some time and then down came the wing tip on the ground. I began to slew round and counteracted as much as possible with the brake on the wheel was down. I ended up going side-ways on one wheel, a tail wheel and a wing tip. Luckily the good tyre held out and the only damage to the aeroplane, apart from that done by the bullets, is a wing tip which is easily replaceable. I hopped out and went off to the M.O. to get a lot of metal splinters picked out of my leg and wrist. I felt jolly glad to be down on the ground without having caught fire.......That was yesterday. Today, Tuesday we have not up to now been engaged. We went up this morning, but the raid turned out to be a very large number of fighters on an offensive patrol. We steered clear of them as they were not bombing and we would do no good by attacking them. There were about 50 of them.......... I forgot to mention yesterday’s scores. We lost another man and shot down two and a half, of the Hun. We did, however,stop the bombing raid from reaching its objective Yeovil. They dropped all thier bombs on Sherborne... I am just wondering what is going to happen this afternoon and whether the weather is ever going to break properly..........

October 10.......... We have had some more excitements down our way. We had a show on Monday with a large number of Jerry bombers and fighters, and it was very lucky that we did not have it the day before (Sunday) as the Hun would have had a walk-over with regard to our squadron. The squadron had decided to have a party in celebration of its 60th Hun and we had arranged to have it in Swange come what might. As it happened it was rather unfortunate because we had to drink on empty stomachs. We all missed our lunch and tea, due to having to go off on flaps and we finally stopped flying at seven. We then all went off to Swange and began drinking cocktails and sherrt. We began eating about nine and had an excellent dinner with champagne and port, etc, to accompany it. We then all moved off to another hotel, where we seemed to be able to drink without limitation till any hour of the morning. It actually turned out that the proprietor of this hotel had been registered and was waiting to be called up. He was therefore selling off all his stock of which he had plenty. His licence had run out and he had not bothered to renew it and he was therefore not very careful as to what hours he kept. I finally arrived back at about 5.30am to find Dudley Williams ‘Out’ on my bed. I woke him up and we picked up our blankets and staggered off to dispersal where we slept as we were on at 6.30am in the morning. We both of us passed out pretty efficiently when we reached dispersal, and even a telephone ringing for half an hour failed to wake us up. Luckily for us the weather, for the whole of that day was absolutely lousy and the wholesquadron was able to sleep off the after-effects unhindered by the activities of the Hun.

October 10 Cont....... Next day the weather cleared up. We were now sufficiently recovered and were akk O.K. for flying again. We had a quiet morning and people were beginning to think, somewhat prematurely, that we were ‘going’ to be let off lightly that day. However, off we went in the afternoon to intercept a big raid... This raid consisted of about 40-50 Junkers Ju 88’s and an equal number of Me 110’s. Some people say that there were also Me 109’s about, but I saw none. They crossed the coast and went North just to the East of Warmwell and then turned North-West and made for Yeovil. We attacked them just about as they turned North-West. The bombers were in loose formation at about 16,000ft with their guard of Me 110’s behind and above them. We were at 20,000ft and to one side of the bombers. We all dived down on the latter to try to split them up thoroughly. I was not able to get in a good shot at them and pulled away to the right and up again. I then took stock of the position. I was in a bad position to go for the bombers again, so I thought I would have a crack at the fighters. These I found were going about in strings of about 10 aircraft sneaking along behind the bombers. From time to time the leader of each string would come round behind the last man in the sring to form a defensive circle. The leader would then break the circle again to catch up the bombers. After one or two attempts I found I was able to sneak up behind one of these “strings” and attach myself to the end of it for a short spell, shooting at the end machine in the line. Every time the leader came round to form a defensive circle I had to break away and wait till the circle broke up again I was however, able to tack myself on again. In this way I was to make the end one of one of these lines stream glycol from one of its engines. I was not able to finish it off as the leader of this particular string was forming one of the defensive circles and was comimg round behind me..... I then drew away for a bit to take stock of the position. The Huns were now making for the coast again, and I saw a straggler all by himself. I swooped up on him from the starboard rear quarter. He saw me coming and opened up, but I was able to catch him up quite easily. I opened fire and his starboard engine streamed glycol. I switched on to the fuselage and then over to the port engine. I was by now overtaking him somewhat fast, so I drew out to his left. Suddenly the back half of his cockpit flew off and out jumped two men. Their parachutes streamed and opened and they began drifting slowly earthwards. Their aeroplane, left to itself, dived vertically into the sea, making a most wonderful sight and an enormous splash.... I had not finished my ammunition and looked around for something else to shoot at, but everything seemed to have cleared off, so I circled round the two Hun’s, now floating earthwards. They took an awful long time to come down, as they baled out at about 15,000ft they came down on land and I watched the Army rush up and capture them. I then returned to the aerodrome and landed to see what had happened to the rest of the squadron.....The squadron’s score was three confirmed and one probable that day. We unfortunately had one chap shot down. He was very badly burnt and died of his burns next day. This was a most unfortunate case. The man was a Sergeant Pilot and he had just received his commission. He was due to go on leave that morning, but was not able to owing to the fact that there were no spare pilots in our flight. The flight-commander had gone ill the day before and I, being the next senior officer in the flight, was acting flight-commander.

October 23 1940.............. Very little has happened down here while I have been away, but one pilot was killed in a crash.Two were sent off in some foul weather. One managed to get back all right, but the other flew into the ground and was killed outright. Luckily, the chief controller was down here at the time, and so found out all about it first hand. He will see that somebody is well and truly ‘administered unto’ for that episode... I have flown twice since I have been back, but I have seen nothing. There is a lull on down this way with regard to enemy activity on the large scale, though they still send over lone raiders. The weather to-day is wonderfully lousy and we haven’t got anybody at readiness. We are all available in the mess.

November 19 ... How goes things at home? I wonder whether you have had any Italians round your way. I wish they would come over here, but their last show over the Thames seems to have scared them pretty thoroughly.. We continue to get an occasional fighter sweep over the Isle of Wight or that district,but have not connected up with any of them. I have had some luck, though, in that I met up with a lone Junkers Ju 88 the other day. I was leading a section of two when we saw a condensation trail moving across above us about 5,000ft higher. We turned round and climbed flat out after it. It was going North and it took us some time to catch up, so when we did it was well inland. I was able to get within about 800 yds of it before it saw me, and when finally it did see me it began a gentle turn to the left. This was very nice for me and I was able to close in and give it a burst from the port rear quarter. I made three attacks from port and starboard quarters, but could see no visible result from my fire. I therefore thought to myself, ‘Damn this’ and coming in from dead astern and slightly underneath I held my fire until within about 150 yards. I then gave it a good burst at point blank range and smoke began to come from the port engine. Unfortunately the rear gunner of the 88 landed one plumb on the middle of my windscreen splintering it in all directions and making it quite opaque. I drew away to the left and saw that I had started a fire under the port engine, an ominous red glow clearly visible. I could not sight any more through my cracked windscreen, but my number two was going hard at it. All this time the enemy had been diving hard South. We had caught him up at 24,000 ft and had now got down to about 5,000ft and were over Poole. My number two finished his ammunition and broke away. The Hun was now obviously in a bad condition and badly on fire. He began a left-hand turn which became steeper and steeper and ended in a vertical dive. He hit the ground over the vertical, on a street corner in Poole. There was a great mushroom of orange flame edged with oily black smoke, as all his bombs exploded with his petrol. I dived down to have a look and could see nothing left of the aeroplane except a large number of little pieces scattered over a wide area, and each burning fiercely. There were also three houses on fire and I was very sorry about that. It was a pity it could not have come down in a field. Luckily there were no civilian deaths, though I believe two people were injured. I had six bullets in my machine. Two through the prop, one on the windscreen,one in the wing and two others had penetrated the engine cooling, one bouncing off the crankcase and the other half severing three plugleads and finishing up in the fireproof bulkhead.

December 2..... More excitements to report. In my last letter I wrote saying that we had not had any of these offensive patrols for a long time... Well the day after I wrote they came again and it was a very eventful day. The first one was at lunch time and I had just had about one mouthful of soup when we were called out. As usual they came over at about 35,000ft and we were below them. They began to come down on us, but we saw them coming and turned to meet them. As soon as they climed back out to sea. We were by now all spilt up and after patrolling for some time looking for odd stray Huns I returned and landed. I found, on landing, that after we had spilt up, one of the pilots had found a lone Me 110 and shot it down in the sea, after a longish chase to the South of the Isle of Wight... We managed to stay on the ground till our tea arrived out at dispersal, but just as I was taking my first bite of bread we were all sent off again. Once more we were sent off late, and we were only at 23,000ft over the Isle of Wight when we saw the blighters coming in above us at about 30,000ft to 35,000ft. We were not making condensation trails at 23,000ft, but the Huns were, and when we saw some of the trails stop we knew that they were coming down on us... The next thing that happened was that, on looking over my right shoulder, I saw one of those beastly yellow-nosed blighters about a hunred yards on my right. It had obviosly dived down and had a pot at somebody in our formation and I must have first seen him just after he had finished shooting. My instinctive reaction was to pull up sharply to the right to see if anything was coming down on my tail. As I did this, the Me 109 slid across under me to my left and dived full speed for France. I flipped over to the left and dived flat out after him. The 109 was very keen to get home, and was a fool of over-confident, for he never looked round once to see whether he was being pursued or not. It took me time to catch up, especially as I was not such a fool and weaved slightly to keep a look out behind my tail. I was very angry with him for having surprised us and I knew that one of us must have been shot up by him. I distinctly remember muttering to myself as I flipped over and dived after him. You dirty b.......! This is where you get yours!”........ I crept up on him slowly, keeping beneath him in his blindest spot. Slowly he got bigger in my sights- then he was in range, but I did not open fire; I was going to make absolutely sure of him, so I waited till I was within about 100 yards. Then aiming carefully I fire a one second burst was enough. Black smoke belched forth and oil spattered over my windscreen. He half-rolled and dived away. I followed in a steep spiral to see what was going to happen but my speed became so great I pulled away and my wing hid him for a bit. When I looked again there was a large number of flaming fragments waffling down to the sea. One large black lump, which was not on fore, trailed a white plume which snapped open and became a parachute. This was the pilot and he must have baled out just before the petrol tank blew up. However, he landed in the sea and might just as well have blown up for he was never found. I went home in great spirits but this joy soon evaporated, for when I landed I heard of the death of the chap who had been flying just behind me. The 109 had shot at him, hitting his glycol system. Streaming smoke, he made for land and then tried to bale out. He bungled up his baling out and tore his parachute in doing so, with the result that his descent to earth was somewhat swift. His parachute streamed out behind him but owing to the tears did not open. We lost one other pilot that day, one of the Polish sergeants. He just disappeared and must have become involved with a large number of enemy fighters. So we lost two for two and that is not very satisfactory. I found that I had shot down my 109 with 440 rounds, that is 55 rounds from each gun. This is the easiest victory I’ve had and fulfilled a long-felt ambition to shoot down one of those damned yellow-nosed blighters. My total score is now six and a third confirmed, one unconfirmed and four damaged and is made up as follows: Destroyed confirmed: A half Dornier 17, one Ju87, one and a half [Ju88] and [a one-third] Ju88, one Me109, two Me 110’s. Probably destroyed: One He111. Damaged: Two He111’s, two Me110’s.

Footnote: Extracks from “The Times” Tuesday December 31 1940.

The king has approved the following awards in recognition of gallantry displayed in flying operations against the enemy Distinguished Flying Cross “Pilot officer Dudley Williams, “ Pilot officer Eric Simcox Marrs .... Has led his flight with great skill and coolness. He has destroyed at least six hostile aircraft,

January 5, 1941...... Well here Iam and back again to work with a vengance I came on readiness the next day, and with my section. We were chasing all round the skies after Hun. My number three finally saw it heading off South at top speed out to sea, so we, unfortunately had to give up... The next day, yesterday, my section-two aircraft this time- had a scamble just before we were relieved for lunch. Again we went chasing all round the skies after Huns, and, during a “Hell Dive” from 20,000ft to 8,000, I lost my number two. We had been told that there was an enemy aeroplane just beneath us. However, I saw nothing. I then got rather fed up and dived below the clouds and retuned to base to fix my position. The cloud was a very nearly silod layer at 1,000ft but only 1,000ft thick. The next thing I was ordered to do was to fly on course of 160, which I prceeded to do, but as I get out of R.T before I was told to stop. I thought “This isn’t much use” and returned to base again to ask for futher instructions. I was then told, much to my surprise that there was one enemy aeroplane, approaching Warmwell at 5,000ft and had just crossed the coast. I thought to myself that this was going to be fun if it, was true. I nipped up through the clouds quickly and circled around to look. I had made one complete turn when I saw an aeroplane about three miles NE of me, about 2,000 feet higher up, and going W.N.W. I opened up everything and aimed to cut it off. It looked very slim and had two rudders, and I thought it might have been a Hampden, although I was pretty sure it was a Dornier. I soon came close enough to see a large black cross on its side and recognised it as a Dornier 17. I approached from the sea and opened fire at about 400 yards from the port rear quarter. He then turned south and dived like stink for the clouds. I turned in behind him and, closing to about 250 yards, fired at the fuselage and two engines in turn. Black and white smoke came from the engines and all return fire from the gunners ceased. I was overshooting and just before he reached the clouds I had to break away. I shot on down through the clouds and came out just over Weymouth Bay. I then hunted up and down above the cloud and below but another sign of the Dornier did I see. I was very disconsolate and was sure he must have got away so I returned home and landed. I was therefore overjoyed to hear that he had come down in the sea and that boats had gone out to look for survivors. He had evidently turned left in the cloud and come out over Lulworth Cove. He appeared to be in difficulties and had smoke coming from him. He dived down to sea level going towards Portland Bill. A couple of waves washed over him and he sank. Nobody was found. Needless to say there was rejoicing in Bournemouth last night. I must say I have been phenomenally lucky with these lone aircraft and this was the first Hun that anybody had seen close enough to engage since those Me 109’s we were attacked by........

March 28 .... Here I am back at Warmwell again after a very full day at Southampton and a number of shocks this morning. I was told when I got back this morning that my best friend, Charles Davis, had been killed in a crash two days ago. It appears he flew into a hill when coming down through cloud near Winchester. His death has shaken me a lot. I was told that I have been mentioned in despatches although what fir I can’t think. The last thing I found out was that Dudley Williams and I have to go to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday. We have to be there not later than 10.30 am and will receive instructions there. The last shock was to find in a new casualty list, just out, that two more of my term at Cranwell, both of whom I know quite well, are now dead... All this news being sprung upon me within about half an hour just about stopped my brain from working at all.

July 19..... The country is, of course, lovely when the sun is out and when it is not blowing a gale, and we see all the old houses from the air. The ground we cover stretches from Lundy Island to the Scilly Isles to Plymouth. Yesterday the sun was shining and I had a trip over the Scilly Isles. When I was ordered to land, I went down low to have a look at the place. I don’t think I have ever seen a prettier place- just one big harbour and the sea between so shallow that it was all a clear jade in colour. There are also a large number of small uninhabited islets and the place as a whole would be perfect for a summer holiday- a wonderful place for swimming. It does not look as though any flight lieutenants are going to be posted to the squadron, and now I am well settled into my job. Whether I am doing it efficiently or not I don’t know I have had damn little experience of dealing with and heanding men, but I am learning...... Talking of shooting- I, with my number two, was lucky enough to come across a lone Heinkel 111- one of these sea raiders- about twenty miles south-west of the Scilly Isles. We fixed it good and proper, and shot its tail off. It made a lovely splash in the sea- nobody got out...........

24 July, 152 Squadron provided close escort to Hampden bombers against Brest, the raid being recorded as the biggest daylight attack of the war thus far. The RAF completed a successful raid but 152 Squadron lost two pilots. Sergeant Jimmy Short was one, Flight Lieutentant Eric Simcox Marrs D.F.C was the other. Flak over the target was terrific and it was believed by the other pilots that it shot down both pilots. It was reported at first that Short had been killed, but later he was found to have been taken prisoner. Boy Marrs, who had celebrated his twentieth birthday just fifteen days before, was killed. The squadron ORB recorded He had been the B Flight Commander for a long time and was probably the best pilot in the squadron. Apart from that his personality and ability as a flight commander were supreme. He was admired and loved by everyone. His name in the squadron will live for evermore. He is buried in Kerfautras Cemetery, Brest, France.

To signalize the Fifth Anniversary of the day which marks the victory of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain September 15 THE AEROPLANE publishes the first of four instalments of a diary written by a 20 year old fighter pilot in the form of letters to his father.