Australia's Few. 23 September 1940

46 and 249 Squadrons were ordered to carry out another Wing interception on the morning of 23 September. John Crossman at Stapleford Tawney, flying V6748, took off at 9.25 a.m. 46 Squadron met up with 249 Squadron, including Bill Millington in Hurricane V6622, who took off minutes later, over North Weald at 20,000 feet.

John noted that there were ‘plenty of fighters around which made off as soon as they saw us’. In the distance, he ‘saw a dog fight over Dover’. It was too far away and he made no attempt to join in. He watched as ‘three kites went down in flames but [was] too far to see whether they were ours or Jerry’s.’

During their patrol, John ‘went up as high as 25,000 feet and, despite the mild autumn weather on the ground, his ‘hands were frozen almost stiff’. He was looking forward to a hand knitted pullover that was on its way from Australia because ‘as we do most of our patrols in the vicinity of 20,000 feet we aren’t generally too warm in the air in spite of a lot of clothes’.

 There appeared to be plenty of ‘Jerries’ in the distance, and John even saw some ‘coming over from France but they turned back as soon as they saw us’. But, as there was no enemy within fighting cooee, the Wing patrol was abandoned after about 90 minutes. 249 Squadron’s verdict? It was nothing but a ‘quiet day, nothing to report’.