From Dogfight to Diplomacy

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A Career Begins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

No. 54 (F) Squadron, RAF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Fleet Air Arm: Conversion and Joining . . . . . . . . . . .

The Fleet Air Arm: Egypt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Fleet Air Arm: Malta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Fleet Air Arm: Return Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A Quali速ed Flying Instructor: Back with the RAF . . . . . . .

London, the Air Ministry, the Phoney War and Romance .

The Outbreak of War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Battle of Britain: Early Skirmishes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Battle of Britain: Baling Out over Sussex . . . . . . . . . .

The Battle of Britain: `The Hardest Day' . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Battle of Britain: Pilot Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Marriage to Diana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Further Sorties into France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Shot Down over the Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kriegsgefangenschaft: Transit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kriegsgefangenschaft: Stralsund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kriegsgefangenschaft: Stalag Luft III and the `Wooden Horse' Douglas Bader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kriegsgefangenschaft: Schubin, Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kriegsgefangenschaft: Sagan Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The March to the West and the Unknown . . . . . . . . . . . .

Luckenwalde Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Soviet Liberation and American Repatriation . . . . . . . . . .

The Return . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A Sad Homecoming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Long Haul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Stella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cranwell Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

More of Cranwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Diana Declines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Concerns of a Chief Flying Instructor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 1 7 13 17 22 26 31 35 41 44 53 58 62 66 69 76 81 88 96 102 104 108 112 121 126 136 139 146 151 155 166 172 174

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Chapter Nine

The Outbreak of War THE WAR BEGINS IN EARNEST y June 1940 the phoney war ended. The German army had invaded Belgium and out¯anked the northern wing of the Maginot Line.

The British Expeditionary Force had put up stiff resistance; the French army, demoralised and disaffected, fell back and began to crumble. The Germans, with the full support of the Luftwaffe, swept westward. The retreat of the British force to the Channel ports began.

France pleaded for additional Hurricane squadrons to be sent out to augment those we had provided in support of the Allied forces. Churchill required Fighter Command to ¯y out eight squadrons which Dowding stated emphatically would reduce the ®ghter defences of the United Kingdom to an unacceptable level. At an historic and bitter meeting with Churchill, the Chief of the Air Staff, the Air Minister and other Service chiefs, Dowding, a taciturn man, known as `Stuffy', laid the plain truth in terms of simple mathematics on the table. He then placed his pencil on his pad and sat back, silent. Churchill havered but eventually accepted what he saw before him. He compromised with a smaller reinforcement of Hurricanes for France, but from then on he was Dowding's enemy.

Dowding suffered accordingly but he won the Battle of Britain, for which Churchill took most of the credit.

By now I was busy exploiting my contacts with the Postings department in Adastral House. With Tishy's full approval, I openly lobbied my colleagues for a posting to a ®ghter squadron. Week followed week and nothing happened.

The evacuation from Dunkirk had somehow been accomplished. The 51st Highland Division had been surrounded and most of them made prisoners of war. The Hurricane squadrons in France had been decimated, their remnants returned, disillusioned and demoralised to be rested and

B

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From Dogfight to Diplomacy re-formed in the UK. Our situation was desperate; our plight unimaginable.

And then I got it. No. 64 Squadron, equipped with Spit®res, had lost its commanding of®cer over Dunkirk. He was replaced by a small, oldish Squadron Leader who, for medical reasons, was un®t to operate at high altitude. He too needed replacing. I got the job.

After a short conversion course onto Spit®res at Aston Down, I was ready to take over command but I was informed I wasn't to take over 64 Squadron. I was to be the ®rst CO of an entirely new concept in ®ghter aircraft. In short, I was to work up a squadron equipped with a singleseater, twin-engined ®ghter, the Westland Whirlwind. So, I was `converted' to Blenheims to give me experience of twin-engined ®ghters. I was furious.

The Whirlwind proved an unmitigated disaster which was quickly recognised by the Air Staff. It was taken out of the front line. At low altitude it was fair enough. Its armament was equivalent to that of the Spit®re and Hurricane but, above 15,000 feet, its performance fell off dramatically. It would have been suicide to have used it in the ensuing Battle of Britain and mercifully it was relegated to a night-®ghter role. I pleaded limited night-¯ying experience which was borne out by my log book and, after further lobbying and string pulling, I succeeded in recovering 64 Squadron, which was still without a serviceable commanding of®cer. So, with enormous relief, I was despatched to Kenley, a frontline ®ghter sector station near Caterham in Surrey.

While at Aston Down I had met and become friends with Art Donahue, an American civilian pilot. He had somehow joined the RAFVR in Canada and was, I believe, the ®rst American citizen to volunteer for ¯ying duties in the RAF. In June 1940 the United States was neutral. After I had left to command 64 Squadron, Art asked if he could be posted to serve with me. He served me with great loyalty and gallantry. He became the `pet' of the Squadron. He was a little over ®ve feet tall with closecropped, blond hair and bright blue eyes. He was killed in 1942. His book Tally Ho is dedicated to me.

At that time Kenley was a two-squadron station. Wing Commander Prickman was the Station Commander, a ®rst-class of®cer and leader.

Squadron Leader Norman was the Sector Controller. There was an elderly and eccentric Flight Lieutenant in charge of air®eld discipline and safety. He was a Christian Scientist and preached his beliefs incessantly, off duty and on. I was to meet his son in the British Embassy in Moscow when I was appointed Air Attache some sixteen years later.

My arrival at Kenley was not auspicious. The CO whom I was to relieve was an ill man and looked it. He was courteous enough but unwelcoming.

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Chapter Nine He introduced me to the Squadron of®cers in the Mess that evening. I was none too happy with what I saw. No. 64, a pre-war squadron, had recently been re-equipped with Spit®res in replacement of obsolescent Blenheims.

The Squadron had been badly mauled during the Dunkirk patrols where it had lost its leader. Morale was low and there was no corporate spirit in the Of®cers' Mess. I was told by the CO that I would meet the NCO pilots and ground crew on the following day. The Squadron consisted of two Flights of six aircraft, each with a Flight Lieutenant in command. One Flight Commander had recently returned from hospital with wounds in his head from a cannon strike. The other was suffering from nervous exhaustion.

One or two of the junior of®cers were showing signs of bloodymindedness. One was insolent and bordering on the insubordinate. The CO and I went to talk privately in his room. He explained that until he himself was posted as un®t to ¯y I was to be supernumerary. He would continue to lead the Squadron. This suited me ®ne. I needed time to get to grips with what was to be my team. Something was wrong and it was imperative I ®nd out the reason as quickly as possible. I asked his opinion but he hedged. He did explain the tactics he had evolved for the patrols over the Channel and gave me a certain amount of con®dential information about the personal capabilities of the pilots. He hardly mentioned the NCOs. I formed the opinion that the whole situation was too much for him. I had one hell of a job to do to pull the team together before the real ®ghting began.

The Squadron was operating mainly on patrols over the Channel, protecting the slow-moving convoys coming in from the Atlantic. They were sitting targets for the Luftwaffe's Stuka dive bombers which attacked them relentlessly but without much success. The number of ships which got through the strait and made the docks at Tilbury was remarkably high.

We were called to `readiness' at dawn, which was about 4 am. The CO had me as his No. 2. He adopted a pre-war tight formation which required considerable concentration on station keeping, allowing little or no chance to scan outwards, above or below. I didn't like it. We ¯ew Channel patrols for a week: we seemed always to be late over the convoy and only on a few occasions were in time to engage the Stukas. We destroyed a few, but the Squadron scattered and engaged the Bf 109s which were always in attendance. We lost two pilots before the CO was posted to a staff job and I was of®cially appointed as CO of 64 Squadron.

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Chapter Seventeen

Kriegsgefangenschaft: Transit

I

was a prisoner of war ± a Kriegsgefangener or, in the idiom of those behind barbed wire in Germany, a `Kriegie'.

I sat in the rear seat of the Citroen tourer, painted Luftwaffe grey with an identi®cation letter on the rear door. A Luftwaffe Captain sat in the front with the driver. A Sergeant, with an open holster in which could be seen a heavy pistol, sat next to me. We moved off from the coast through heavily wooded country. The sky became overcast and I started to shiver. The Sergeant threw a cloak over me. I thanked him and began to consider my situation. The rule book for capture had emphasised that the sooner one made an attempt to escape the better one's chances of doing so. The Citroen, though a four seater, had only two doors. The front door was on the left, the driver's seat. The rear door was on the right, the seat occupied by the armed Sergeant. Short of leaping over my side of the open-top car there was no way of escape.

We climbed a hill into a thick forest. The engine began to splutter, then failed and we came to a halt. The Sergeant read my thoughts. He brought out his Mauser and, with a meaningful grin, cocked it on his lap. I decided not to make a break for it and sat resigned while the driver ®ddled under the bonnet. Then he climbed back into the driving seat, started the engine and we moved off into open pasture land.

The Sergeant relaxed, replaced his pistol in its holster and gave me a cigarette. The Captain in the front, who had remained silent during the journey, turned to me and said in excellent English, `We should not be at war. We are cousins and relations should not ®ght each other.'

I wasn't able to ®gure out the relationship, so I remained silent. He turned and looked over the countryside and then stared ahead through the windscreen. He turned up the collar of his greatcoat against the evening chill. A little while later he said, without turning his head, `We are

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From Dogfight to Diplomacy spending the night at St Omer'. We arrived about an hour later. Our destination was obviously a peace-time estaminet which had been taken over by the Luftwaffe as an interrogation centre. The ground ¯oor was still a cafe with metal-topped tables and a bar. Upstairs was an of®ce and a room with bunk beds, a desk and two telephones. The toilet was on the ground ¯oor and outside the cafeÂ.

I was escorted into the upstairs room, given an adequate meal, accompanied to the outside toilet and then invited to lie down and sleep. I was tired out and did so. Two Luftwaffe airmen, both armed, sat at a table, smoked and played some game with cards. I fell asleep. The lights had been dimmed.

At three o'clock I was awakened. The lights went on and an elderly, bespectacled Luftwaffe Lieutenant told me to get up and join him at the table. He spoke tolerable English. He showed me a form headed `International Red Cross ± Geneva' which he told me to ®ll in so that my family would know very soon that I was alive and a prisoner of war. We had been briefed about this. The Geneva Convention required POWs to give only their name, rank and service number ± nothing more. The form I was given required, amongst other details, name and address of next of kin, number of squadron, age, length of service, and private address.

My interrogator, fat, slightly boozy and not too cleanly shaven, assured me that if I ®lled in the form the International Red Cross would be able to contact me and my family wherever I was during my captivity in Germany. I didn't fall for it. It was a pathetic piece of bluff. I explained that I knew the provisions of the Geneva Convention and completed the sections ± name, rank and service number. He was not best pleased and threatened that my family might well not know that I was alive if I refused to give the information required.

At about 3.30 in the morning of Saturday, 14 March 1941 I produced the answer. `I have no family,' I said. `I am an orphan and unmarried. No one would be concerned with my whereabouts.' I was given a cup of coffee and two croissants at seven o'clock in the downstairs cafeÂ. A young French girl with lovely dark eyes brought my uniform, dried and ironed, which she handed to me.

She looked me very straight in the eyes, said `Bonne chance' and shook my hand. I felt something hard in her palm. I closed mine on it and put my hand in my pocket. When I changed into my uniform I found she had given me a gold ring. It ®tted my left little ®nger well enough. I put it on and wondered where it came from and to whom it had belonged. I felt very moved and thought about it for a long while afterwards.

I and my Luftwaffe escorts drove to Brussels where we waited for an hour until our train drew in. I was handed over to a nasty little Luftwaffe

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Chapter Seventeen lieutenant and a bored sergeant who grinned at me and said it would be a long train ride into Germany. How right he was. For the 速rst half-hour or so the Lieutenant smoked and glanced at me from time to time. We sat opposite each other.

The train was evidently a military one as the corridor was full of German soldiers who peered in at me and made jokes which I didn't understand. To relieve the boredom I asked to go to the toilet. The sergeant accompanied me along the corridor past the soldiers, one of whom said in English, `Germany will win the War!' I made no reply and went to the toilet. The window was sealed, so there was no possibility of climbing out. I returned with my escort and rejoined the lieutenant in our compartment.

He then addressed me in very indifferent English which I pretended not to understand. This shut him up for another half-hour by which time we had stopped somewhere in a large station. We were brought hot soup and a roll. He tried again. This time I helped him out with my limited German, which proved a mistake as he forthwith launched into a tirade against the Versailles Treaty, explaining that as a professor of history before the War he had made a study of the humiliation to which his country had been put by evil-minded politicians who had themselves connived to wage war against his country for no better reason than to demonstrate that they, not Germany, were the rulers of Europe.

There was much more. It was great rhetorical stuff delivered in staccato English-cum-German which made it none too easy to follow but was quite evidently intended as a prelude to the grand 速nale which was the enormous guilt which we and our French allies must bear for defying the right of Hitler and the Third Reich to repossess their `homelands', have access to the Baltic and stabilise (not the word used in 1941, but it expresses what he meant) the splinter groups in Europe who were now under control and no longer causing trouble. Germany was Europe! A pact had been agreed with the Soviet Union and only Britain's folly and cowardice had forced the Fuehrer to resort to arms. Cowardice on Britain's part: she feared for her empire and the possibility that her colonies would explode in her face. After half an hour he was literally spitting and a group of German soldiers had grouped at the compartment door. Occasionally one or two contributed a comment, or a discussion broke out which the sergeant in our compartment usually silenced with a wave of the hand. The lieutenant ended his lecture. He suggested that the sooner Britain came to terms with the Third Reich the better for everyone.

I should ponder this and cease to be arrogant. He sat back, wiped his glasses and lit another cigarette. For half an hour or so he remained silent.

The sergeant was dozing; I followed his example.

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From Dogfight to Diplomacy I slumbered on, semi-conscious of the train jolting to a halt at several stations where there were sounds of loud voices and people moving up and down the corridor and then the clanking of the train drawing out from the platform. I fell soundly asleep.

I was woken by the sergeant who jerked his thumb towards the door of the compartment. The train was slowing down, lights appeared and we came to a halt. The three of us climbed down onto the platform, where we waited awhile and soldiers and civilians milled around while a loud-hailer gave messages which I couldn't understand. Then a young, fair-haired, blue-eyed Luftwaffe corporal approached us. He didn't salute the lieutenant. He spoke in a tone of authority. The of®cer looked at me, clicked his heels and departed with the Sergeant.

The corporal turned to me and in perfect English, with only the slightest German accent, said `I have come to escort you to your camp. Bad luck your being shot down but you won't be with us for long. The War will soon be over and then we can be friends again. We will look after you well.

Come, follow me please.' I said `Thank you' rather feebly. `You are surprised I speak English, yes?' I said `Yes.' He laughed. `For four years I was an undergraduate at Cambridge. A beautiful place Cambridge. I love the reaches of the Cam with a punt and a pretty girl. Do you know Cambridge?' I said I didn't. `Pity,' he said. `You must visit Cambridge when the War is over, yes?' All this frankly took the wind out of my sails.

For a day and a half I had held my tongue and kept the traditional `stiff upper lip'. To ®nd a man of my own age, albeit an enemy, speaking my language and identifying with what I had left behind broke down my assumed dignity and hostility.

We talked as he led me to a car with a Luftwaffe driver. We sat together in the back. He said we were going to a transit camp ± Dulag Luft ± at a place called Oberoesel where I would meet several of my friends. He mentioned John Casson who had come to grief over Norway and others whom I had known before the War. He said the conditions were comfortable, the food was good and there was wine from France. It was, he added, a very pleasant place to relax after what I had been through.

Dulag Luft was a hutted camp surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by sentries in watchtowers with machine guns. I was taken over by a Luftwaffe captain who led me to a block apart from the main camp, then upstairs where he handed me over to a guard who unlocked a door and showed me into a small room with a bed, a table and a chair. He said something about banging on the door if I wanted the toilet and locked me in.

I spent three days in solitary con®nement. I was adequately fed and watered and allowed out to the toilet. Other than that, I had no attention

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Chapter Seventeen and my requests for a razor and something to read were ignored. Left to myself, I worried about Diana and Dad and the Squadron I had left behind. I became increasingly neurotic and only snapped out of it by reminding myself that this was precisely the effect my treatment was intended to have.

On the fourth day the door was opened and a short, middle-aged Captain walked in. He stared at me and said in good English, `Good morning, Mr MacDonell. Why haven't you shaved?' I explained why. He grunted and then said we would go for a walk. After that he would see that I was given shaving things. I thanked him and he led the way down to a side entrance leading to a walled garden.

He opened the conversation by asking if I knew London well. Before the War he had many English friends in London. Several of them from aristocratic families, he added. I replied non-committally. We walked on in silence. I then asked him how long I was to be con®ned alone in a room without even a book to read. He carried a little swagger-stick which he pointed at me. `That will depend on you,' he replied. It had been reported that I was insolent, uncooperative and had shown no gratitude for being saved from drowning. In short, my behaviour was unbecoming an of®cer and a gentleman!

We walked back to the building in quick time. At the door of my room I looked at him and said, `I apologise if I have been uncooperative. You know, as an of®cer, that prisoners of war should not disclose information to the enemy. I have obeyed my orders. Also, I am Scottish and not English. The Scottish are known to be dour.' He was clearly unable to understand that, so I explained that the Scots were a people who kept their thoughts to themselves!

His attitude became less formal. He ordered my guard to bring me a razor and shaving soap, and a newspaper. He clicked his heels, told me that the Commandant would visit me later in the day, and departed. I had my ®rst shave in four days and felt ten feet high.

That afternoon the Commandant came to see me. He was extremely impressive, tall, slim, erect and very good looking. He spoke excellent English. I was beginning to wonder whether the entire of®cer class of the Luftwaffe had been educated in England. He shook my hand, addressed me by my rank, apologised for my con®nement, but there had been no spare bed in the camp; that had now been arranged. He was sorry that I had `fallen out' with my escorts, particularly as he had a deep fellow feeling for ®ghter pilots. Perhaps I had been strained to the limit during the great air battles of the summer? Perhaps, I thought.

He was arranging for me to join my comrades in the camp that evening where, he understood, a reception was to be held for me by my several

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From Dogfight to Diplomacy friends. John Casson's name was again mentioned. They had been told that I had been shot down but was now safe and well. I thanked him and called him `Sir'. Why not? He rose elegantly from my bed on which he had been sitting and handed me a tin of Players cigarettes. From France, he said with a smile. He then gave me a sealed envelope with nothing written on it. I opened it. A sheet of notepaper read: `Bad luck. For you the War is over!' It was signed `Werner Molders'.

Molders was one of the Luftwaffe's most successful ®ghter pilots. His career began in the Spanish Civil War and by the time he became a Wing Leader during the Battle of Britain his personal score was considerable. A devout Catholic, he rose to high rank but was not a favourite of Goering.

His death in 1942 in a transport aircraft on the way back from the Russian front was unaccountable and highly suspicious.

The Commandant told me Molders had shot me down. Some consolation perhaps ± but not much. I joined the main camp that evening.

There was no special `reception' but those who knew me showed me round and introduced me. The Senior British Of®cer (SBO) was apparently in bed suffering from ¯u.

The atmosphere in the camp seemed to me far too free and easy.

Security was non-existent. All but a few talked about their experiences before being shot down. Units were referred to by name, number and location and the place was infested by young, blond, blue-eyed `guards' who all spoke ¯uent English, fraternised with the POWs and provided unlimited cigarettes and far too much French wine, brandy and cigars.

Dulag Luft was a propaganda camp. And a very useful source of intelligence for the Germans, as was to be proved later. The contrast between my four days in solitary and the holiday camp atmosphere which I now experienced was both unreal and disturbing.

I spoke with John Casson and others I had known. I told them I didn't like what I saw. We were being softened up and the Germans were getting a lot of useful information, particularly during the evening fraternisation with wine ¯owing. They thought I was over-reacting. The Germans already knew far more than we could tell them. I hadn't any cause to worry. Relax! Meanwhile the evening games of crap and the ever-present, blond, English-speaking guards and adequate rations maintained the status quo. But I found a number of kindred spirits and we exchanged our ideas and concerns.

The SBO, Wing Commander Day ± `Wings Day' as he was called ± was too often in the company of the Commandant. However, I am absolutely certain that Wings Day never disclosed anything of importance. Indeed, throughout the War, he distinguished himself as a magni®cent leader in a number of camps and was awarded a DSO when he was ®nally

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Chapter Seventeen repatriated. He had been shot down in 1939, dropping lea¯ets by day over Germany! But `Wings' had a drink problem which the Germans soon recognised. They provided him with too much liquor: his frequent bouts of ¯u when he took to his bed became a standing joke. I saw very little of him during my few weeks in Dulag Luft.

Far more serious, I was to discover, was the presence of a Flight Lieutenant who had been a pilot in the Communication Flight from Hendon and had been captured with an unserviceable aircraft when the Germans overran an air®eld in France in 1940. He was a traitor who spoke openly of treating with Nazi Germany, who sneered at the idea that we could win the War, and was far too frequently called to the Commandant's of®ce.

I was warned about him by John Casson and many others. But nothing was done. Later he was removed from the camp by the Germans: he then joined the Luftwaffe as an intelligence of®cer and wore a ¯ash on his shoulders ± Freiwilliger EnglaÈnder ± `English Volunteer'. He surrendered to the Allies at the end of the War. As more and more RAF pilots became POWs, a proportion of those in the transit camp were sent to stalags ± permanent camps in Germany. It was signi®cant that those who were regarded by the Germans as cooperative were retained while those like me, who had not made a favourable impression, were `purged', as the saying went.

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