Beaufighter Boys by Graham Pitchfork

Author:Graham Pitchfork
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY/Military/World War II
Publisher: Grub Street

It was now the very height of the Mediterranean summer and midday temperatures were horribly high. We had to rig makeshift sunshades to shield the cockpits; this made them just about inhabitable as we strapped in to fly but, even so, the temperatures ran way above 120 degrees by the time we started up and taxied to the end of the runway. The ground crews also had their problems in this searing heat. They had to be very careful not to touch the flat surfaces of the wings and fuselage with their bodies as they worked stripped to their shorts. It was only too easy to lose a large expanse of tender skin from inside the forearms.

For me, one side effect of the scorching heat was sheer fatigue. I would be up all night supervising the programme and taking my turn to fly patrols of three or four hours. What worried me particularly was that I was beginning to feel tired in the air and on one occasion, when required to fly a second sortie one night, I asked Peter Scurlock, our doctor, to give me something to keep me awake. He said: “I have just the thing – some caffeine tablets.” Despite taking these just before I flew, I had the greatest difficulty keeping my eyes open as I returned from a patrol. I had turned the Beau on to the approach path when I was many miles out to sea, for I could see the flare-path from an altitude of 4,000 feet. I dropped the wheels, set the flaps and trimmed for a powered approach. All seemed to be going nicely but I clearly nodded off because I was rudely awakened by urgent shouts from Laurie. He was just in time for we had sunk well below the glide-path and would have hit the sea about a mile from the runway. Poor Peter was very upset when I hinted that he had got his tablets mixed up and given me sleeping pills!

I soon forgot about this little bit of excitement for a week later I was on patrol north-east of Catania when a determined attack was mounted on a clutch of Spitfire airstrips at Lentini. These were liberally scattered with incendiary and fragmentation bombs. Bill Pratley at the GCI put us into contact with a Ju 88, which never saw us and was smartly sent down in flames. Pratley then put us on to another Ju 88, which did see us and tried to evade. Three of my cannons jammed but I was lucky enough to knock it down with a one-second burst from the fourth cannon and the machine guns, using a lot of deflection. We saw this crash and then Laurie re-cocked the cannons. He had no sooner got back on his radar tubes when he picked up a third Ju 88 without help from GCI. This one was happily wending its way home after dropping its bombs, Laurie produced another copybook interception; I hit the Hun in the starboard engine but it refused to burn.

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