6 October 1940. Peter Moore. Australians in the Battle of Britain.

Australians in the Battle of Britain. 6 October 1940. Peter Moore

Over at 245 Squadron at RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland, Sergeant Peter Moore continued his advanced operational Hurricane training. On 6 October, acrobatics and dog fighting were on the flying agenda, as was air-to-air firing. Peter had learned these skills in his earlier training schools but now he was practising them in the Hurricane and was closer to discovering how he and his machine would react in battle.

Also on the training program was formation flying and practice formation attacks. Even this late in the Battle of Britain, when it had been realised time and again that the RAF’s rigid fighter formations, developed before the war, were a disadvantage there continued to be a strong emphasis on them in operational training.

Pilot Officer Kenneth McGlashan was one of 245’s pilots detailed to advanced training duties. Even as he schooled Peter and the other pilots awaiting their operational posting, he was aware that ‘too many men died at the hands of poor strategy’ and that ‘we were practicing antiquated suicidal methods whilst our enemy had recognised the dawn of modern aerial combat’. So, while the Luftwaffe flew in fluid Finger Fours, where two pairs of fighters swept unrestrainedly across the sky all the better to hunt and ‘run’ down the enemy, the RAF fighters were locked into predictable set manoeuvres that lacked responsiveness.

But perhaps the effectiveness or otherwise of the rigid vic formations would have been far from Peter’s mind during those final days of training flying one of the RAF’s most advanced fighters and learning all her vices and virtues. The majority of Peter’s flying career was spent on Hurricanes and overall, he thought them ‘wizard’.

 

(Peter Moore and a Hurricane of 253 Squadron shortly after his commission. Winter 1941/42)