7 October was a busy day for Bill Millington, where he flew four
operational sorties with little rest in between. The first, in Hurricane V7677,
was a bright-and-early 6.30 a.m. 95 minute two-man patrol of the east coast
with Sergeant Davidson. The second, this time in Hurricane V6692, was a shorter
mid-morning 40 minute squadron patrol of Rochford. The third, again to
Rochford, and again in V6692 was a 45 minute post-lunch sortie. These three
patrols were all uneventful.
65 minutes after he landed from the second Rochford patrol, Bill and the
squadron were again in the air. This time, they, along with 46 Squadron, were
tasked with patrolling Maidstone. They were north of Ashford, Kent when 20–30
Messerschmitt 109s in a loose formation were seen. A squadron of Spitfires was
also in the vicinity and had engaged with the enemy fighters. At about 4.15, 46
and 249 squadrons joined in the dogfight at about 21,000 feet. The formations
started to break up and Bill, who was Green One, targeted one of the 109s:
‘I chased a Me
109 which dived steeply down. I left him to a Spitfire and climbed back to
about 22,000 feet into the sun and dived down on a Me 109 which broke off his
attack and turned steeply in front of me, offering a plain view of his
underside at point blank range. I gave him a short burst and he turned on his
back and dived steeply down, emitting black smoke.’
Bill did not see
his target crash as he was ‘tackled by two Spitfires so broke off the
engagement’. The battle then broke up, due, in Bill’s opinion, ‘to the Spitfires
mistaking Hurricanes for Me 109s and attacking them’ but by that stage, ‘approximately
20 [Me 109s] were above at 26–30,000 feet in loose formation roughly heading
for the French coast.’
By this stage of
his career, Bill had well and truly honed his fighter pilot skills. He had
climbed to take advantage of height and sun, then dived and fired at point
blank range. He may not have seen the final fate of his target but the black
smoke was a clear sign that it was out of the battle.
Bill was
credited with a probably destroyed Me 109.
I love getting
different perspectives of the same event. It was clearly a hectic session,
where Bill had to keep an eye out for both the acknowledged enemy and those
over-keen but abject failures in aircraft identification flying the Spitfires. (BTW:
if anyone knows the name of the half-blind squadron, I would be very interested
in knowing it.) Tom Neil considered that day’s battle to be ‘a streaming melee
of Huns, Spitfires and Hurricanes’ but, as far as George Barclay was concerned
they had only had ‘a slight mix-up with 109s’.
However it was
described, the engagement did not herald a resurgence of aerial activity. It
was merely an interruption to a succession of uneventful but necessary patrols.
(Bill
Millington in 1936 with the family car. Not quite as fast or manoeuvrable as a
Hurricane!)
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