Australians in the Battle of Britain. 14 August 1940

As three Australian families experienced the devastating grief of losing their only sons (and in the case of the Glyde and Withall families, their only children) Pat Hughes had returned to Eval from his brief honeymoon and short secondment to Roborough. He was back on ops quicker than he could blink, leading Blue section on two afternoon scrambles on 10 August, and was back on night flying duty on the 11th. On the 13 August, 234 Squadron’s pilots moved to Middle Wallop. They were about to experience some real action.

238 Squadron had suffered great losses at the hands of the Luftwaffe. Their commanding officer, Fenton, was still on sick leave after his injuries of 8 August; they had lost nine men in a month, including three flight commanders; and they need to rest. Accordingly, on 14 August, the squadron was sent to St Eval to recover and rebuild.

Up North at Acklington, however, things had been very quiet. 79 Squadron had been in air over the last few days but Bill Millington was not mentioned in the operations record book. He celebrated his 23rd birthday on the 11th. Desmond Sheen took to the air with 72 Squadron’s Green Section on 14 August for his first patrol since returning to Acklington from the reconnaissance unit. It was uneventful with nothing to report.

At Sutton Bridge, John Crossman was busy converting to Hurricanes. On 10 August he was thrilled to fire all eight guns for the first time. ‘Every day we practise combat fighting and use cine-camera guns.’ He had high hopes that he would be able to return to 32 Squadron sometime next week. Although he had taken no part in their victories, he was proud of his comrades. He told his family in his regular letter home that ‘when you hear of all these Jerries being shot down in the south of England, you’ll know my Squadron is there.’

Meanwhile, at Aston Down, Ken Holland had moved to decent, cool and clean accommodation in the barn ‘actually an improvement on the dirty tents’ and had gone to Gloucester to celebrate Toby’s birthday on the 13th. ‘Dear old T another birthday of his together – hope we see lots more together.’ On 14 August, he was back in the air, dog fighting in the Hurricane. As he became more familiar with the sturdy fighter he came to the conclusion that ‘[I] Don’t like H. as well as the Spits.’  

Happy belated birthday, Bill Millington. Photo taken in 1936.