Saturday 25 August 2012

Australians in the Battle of Britain. 26 August 1940

And now we return to the general narrative of what ‘my’ pilots were doing this day 72 years ago. 

At Brize Norton, Peter Moore was officially mustered as a Pilot: he was finally awarded his pilot’s brevet. He had received a proficiency rating of 79.2%. Next stop, operational training. John Crossman left Sutton Bridge for Biggin Hill. He had had enough of training: he was ‘very glad to be going too’.

26 August was a red letter day for Ken Holland ‘X RAID PATROL FIRST’. He was Yellow Two, but they met nothing. It seems the squadron thought little of this non-encounter as it is not recorded in the Operations Record Book. Perhaps they were too distracted by the ‘big flap in the evening but only solitary Huns over.’

As well as recording his own important news, he noted that ‘234 Wallop had a dog fight with six 109s and shot down two’.

Actually, Ken got it a bit wrong. Indeed, 234 Squadron did have a busy time of it and two of the 109s were shot down by fellow Australian Pat Hughes. At about 5.00 in the evening, five miles south of the Isle of Wight, while on a squadron scramble to patrol Portsmouth, Pat, as Cressy Leader:

‘Intercepted eight Me 109s at 16,000 feet followed by 30 Me 109s 2000 feet above and three miles behind. My section formed astern and attacked the leading eight, who immediately split up into sections of two aircraft each. I attacked the leading two aircraft and fired a burst of five seconds as the rear one which caught fire and dropped vertically. The second aircraft had climbed and was shooting from above but on turning he dived away but was caught by a long burst from dead astern when he pulled out. This aircraft caught fire but stayed in the air for several minutes.’
 
 
Pat was not the only one to bring home the honours for 234 Squadron. Pilot officers Bob Doe, Horton and Mortimer Rose as well as Sergeant Hornby each claimed 109s destroyed. As their squadron historian noted, they ‘brought the memorable month of August to a fitting end by shooting down six more Me 109s’.

(This photo of 234 Squadron was taken before 15 August when Bush Parker was taken POW.)

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