Spitfire by John Nichol

Author:John Nichol [Nichol, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CHAPTER NINE

THE RELENTLESS FIGHT IN EUROPE

With the majority of their bomber force now in Russia, the Luftwaffe was keen to make some kind of response to the RAF and Bomber Command’s pulverising of German cities and factories. They came up with the Hohenkampfkommando – the High Altitude Bomber Detachment. While long in name, this consisted of just two Junkers 86Rs. They were effective, however. By injecting nitrous oxide into the engines and extending the wingspan by 20ft, the Ju86 ‘R’ could reach 48,000ft carrying a single 550lb bomb.1 The aircraft could thus enter RAF airspace with impunity. Goering could now boast that revenge attacks would start on Britain. It was not an idle threat.

Back in late August 1942, Ju86 crews bombed Britain at their leisure, looking on with disinterest as Spitfire Vs surged towards them then dropped away because their engines simply lacked the power to go much higher than 37,000ft, unable to get within attacking range.

Because the Junkers were only single aircraft rather than a fleet that could cause severe damage, and deemed to be on reconnaissance missions, no air-raid warning was given on their approach. The disruption was too costly to the war economy. Thus, during morning rush hour on 28 August 1942, the streets of Bristol were bustling with commuters. Three packed buses were caught in the middle of the Ju86’s 550lb detonation which landed in the city centre. The single bomb ripped open the buses’ thin metal skins, cruelly striking those packed inside. Hot shrapnel and flying glass tore indiscriminately through the early-morning commuters. Limbs were strewn across the bus decks, a scene of carnage that even hardened rescuers struggled to deal with. The bomb killed forty-five and injured fifty-six. It would not go unpunished.

A response was demanded. The RAF hastily formed a high-altitude interception flight using the new Spitfire Mark IXs, which could climb high, and with the Merlin 61 they were able still to generate 600hp at 40,000ft – substantially more than earlier Merlins.

Among their number was Prince Emanuel Galitzine, twenty-four, the great-grandson of Russian Emperor Paul I. The prince was a baby when his parents, with the assistance of the Royal Navy, fled the Russian Revolution in 1919. Galitzine joined the new Special Service Flight, the name given to the hoped-for high-altitude interceptors based at RAF Northolt, west London. The prince enjoyed a diet of chocolate, eggs, bacon and fresh orange juice, food unobtainable during rationing but considered necessary for high-altitude flying. He underwent tests in a decompression chamber in Farnborough, where pilots were starved of oxygen to demonstrate what it was like to work at high altitude. He was given lectures on how to conserve energy at height by making movements slowly and deliberately. ‘Everything’, the pilots were told, ‘should be done in an icy calm manner.’ He would be relying on pure oxygen to breathe and his heated suit to combat the extreme chill of high altitude.

A week later he was in the cockpit of a Mark IX that had been made significantly lighter to gain the extra altitude.

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