Australians in the Battle of Britain. 31 August 1940. Biggin Hill

Biggin Hill was not in a good state. The station had been bombed on the 30th, with a number of fatalities and injuries. Hangars had been blown up and several buildings were rubble. After the Luftwaffe paid a return call at noon on the 31st both male and female station staff pitched in to the fill the bomb craters on the grass airfields. One landing strip was rendered partially serviceable and 72 Squadron had some difficulty landing as their Spitfires had to pick their way through the hastily filled bomb craters.

By the end of the day, at least two dispersed aircraft had received direct hits and were totally destroyed. The armoury had been hit, and the water supply, communications and lighting were out of commission. By the time Des Sheen returned from his detour to Kenley, there were more bomb craters. His WAAF driver skilfully negotiated her way through them to Des’s new billet. He thought his driver’s fortitude remarkable and admired:

 ‘the very fine way the WAAFs were taking it. In particular we had a WAAF driver who had lost her husband and many of her friends in a previous raid but drove us round the airfield with a nonchalant disregard of the many unexploded bombs’.

The officers’ mess had been badly hit and Desmond remembered ‘eating supper by candlelight with the Station Commander walking around heavily bandaged.’ Group Captain Grice had been wounded when the operations block had taken a direct hit. Some semblance of order was established but even so, Des slept in a mess which had four delayed action bombs in the kitchen. He laughed it off when he reported it to his parents some days later: ‘when one is tired it’s easy to sleep!

Despite valiant efforts, the airfield was still unserviceable the next morning so 72 Squadron evacuated to Croydon first thing on the 1st.

John Crossman, who was now on leave for a day or two in Newcastle, heard the news of the damage to Biggin Hill with concern. As he had received little notice of the move to Acklington when he returned to 32 Squadron, some of his personal gear, and his brand new secondhand car had to be left behind. He lost no time in finding out the extent of the damage to his old station and his car. It seems his damage intelligence source was deliberately underplaying the state of affairs:

‘Direct hit on operations room. 30 people in shelter killed by direct hit. A big Humber car was lifted into the air and landed 50 feet up on a hangar. Must try and get my stuff and car away from there but goodness only knows how. Luckily most of the bombs have fallen on a golf course. The mess is still intact and my car.’