A phone call could mean death before breakfast
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1960.
By HUGH DUNDAS, D.S.O., D.F.C.
FROM the evening of August 22, when I was shot down over Dover, until mid-September I was out of the cockpit.
Thus I missed the desperate, climactic stage of the battle which took place in the last week of August and the early days of September.
Like millions of other people He had scored several vic- on the
ground in South-east tories, including the destruction England 1 watched the furious of the Me 109 which got me. conflict in the fine summer sky: Jack Bell, the solicitor from We had a grand-stand view Lincom, was dead. Gallant little former from the windows and terraces Teddy
Aubyn, SL of the Kent and Canterbury Grenadier Guards officer who Hospital.
learned to fly when he was over
Solemn
Every day more wounded were brought in and they gave us the news from the squadrons. In so smal: and close-knit a Com- mand we knew each other well, and day after day es I sat use- lessly un the ground I heard of friends who had died and others who were desperately wounded.
My own squadron was tom to pieces. George Moberly, my closest friend, came in to see me two days after I was shot down, Unusually solemn, he talked about his personal affairs.
The next day he died, baling out over the sea, but too low for his parachute to open properly.
I
SCRAMBLE!
The story of the
greatest battle
of the War.
PART 5
the Channel in November, a few bullets and soaked in blood-yet seconds after shooting down the the steam-roller technique was leading German дое Helmut beginning to tell against Dowding
and England.
Wiek.
In those great days in late August and early September the Battle of Britain became an intensely personal conflict for the pilots taking part on both sides.
It was truly a man-to-man
and
In everyone
the affair
a vivid British squadrons had understanding of what was at stake.
It was probably the last time
30 years old, was desperately that the fate of as Empire, even burned.
of the whole world, would be 1 heard that pugnacious "Boozy" Kellett, a Londen stock-deelded by the outcome of a broker who had teen transferred battle fought out between a few
to command the first hundred men in personal com from us Polish squadron had baled out twice while leading his fierce and revengeful pilots into action.
In the thick
My brother's squadron was in the thick of things in the Southampton are. I was told of his furious indignation at being shot down by the front gun of a cornered Stuka pilot, fighting rat-like against the terrier at tacks of the Splitres.
He survived to inflict great damage on the Luftwaffe before falling to an ME.109 high over
. BY THE WAY.
by Beachcomber
ALWAYS ทายke a
bat.
Having failed utterly to subju gate Fighter Command with his Initial Aurry of sledge-hammer blows on August 12, 13 and 15, Goering switched to the steam- roller approach.
The chicks'
The supply of pilots began to dry up. Some were shot down
In the darkness of that hour of crisis it may well have seem- ed to our 58-year-old comman- der-weary, grey-faced, more withdrawn than ever, alone with the terrible responsibility of his B problem again and again but, escaping job that it was injury returned repeatedly to without a solution. the battle. Such experiences It might have been so, but wore down in the end the very for the intervention of Hitler loughest of spirits.
himself; who now had one of Others were killed before they those flashes of intuition which, had fred a shot. Most survived from time to time, brought such few days before falling dire and terrible consequences to Inevitably in the fury of the his country. ngit, either do death or to 3 period of convalescence from their wounds.
Desperate
Dowding could not rotate his Equadrons fast enough to keep pace with the losses. Squadrons
in the south becaine depleted before others, laken out of the line to re-form, could build up their strength again.
As а
measure desperale Dowding had to post ex perienced pilots from the squadrons which were resting and re-forming, in order to plug the gaps in other squadrons, "Dowding's chicks"the affee- which should really have been tionate name given to the fighter taken out of the line. It was a pilots by Churchill-were to be policy of desperation and it worn down and exhausted by could not last for long. the German Eagles until they could fly and fight no longer.
"Until further orders,” Goer- ing told Kesselring and Sperrie, "operations are to be directed
Affection
It was all a question of pilots. exclusively against the enemy The supply of airplanes was air force. We must concentrate secure-a situation which had our efforts on the destruction of been utterly transformed since the enemy air forces for the the spring of 1940, when the moment, other targets should be short supply of Spitfires and ignored."
Hurricanes was Dowding's mejor concern.
The German fighter leaders were given a tongue-lashing by
For this transformation the Reichsmarschall, who order Dowding has personally given ed that they should be worked the credit to Lord Beaverbrook, relentlessly and in maximum who had been appointed Minis- strength to open up a path for ter of Aircraft Production when the bombers and to beat down the need for airplanes was the Spitfires and Hurricanes desperate.
up unfailingly to
point The Boobs in the Wood of examining the romantic NCE up time the
good and imaginative statements O
fairies were troubled by a of statisticians,
wicked elf. I was important for this elf, in order to serve his own purpost, to find pre- texts for embassing the good which rose fairies. To his surprise and meet them. delight the good fairies, who were not very intelligent, them- selves supplied him with oppor- wunities for making mischief. Their foolishnes enabled
A report says that only half the population of England owns a toothbrush, However pains- taking the officials may have been in visiting and questioning families they probably failed to reach every nook and corner of the great country houses, where such articles are not ostenta- iously displayed. Were caravans and houseboats searched?
with the paucity of brushes you
Bone-weary
the Day after sunlit
day, an
"Lord Beaverbrook," Dowding wrote, "gave us those machines; and I do not believe that I exag- gerate when I say that no other man in England could have done so."
It was a wonderful and cheer-
wicked elf to blame them for average of one thousand German ing thing for the pilots to see you compare the sales claimed Eving the lie to their repeated airplanes came over. Dawn after the replacement airplanes coming by the toothpaste merchants Cy, "We coly want to be chilly dawn the weary British In without fall, ready for battle. friends with, you." Then stop pilots assembled at their dis- It was a morale-booster in a time will be forced to conclude that behaving like dangerous luna-persal points and waited quietly of desperate trouble,
the telephone call which millions eat the stuff, mistaking tics," replied the wicked elf, for it for synthetic cream, or use with a self-righecus grin. And would send some of they all lived unhappily ever death before breakfast.
it as hair-lotion.
A blunt question
after.
Tra-la-la!... HEAR that statistician,
visiting อ huge country SEE that Dr Barbara Moore house. included in his Ogures has descriod .her walk
them to
Night after weary night the
Grey-faced
reckoning was made and though And it earned for Lord Beaver- the advantage was constantly to brook a lasting feeling of affec- the British; though no doubt the tion and admiration among the German pilots were almost as pilots of Fighter Command. bone-weary as our own; though By the beginning of Septem- the eleven toothbrushes used in terass Australlı as "a mere the morale of the Luftwaffe was ber the output of Hurricanes the stables for the horses. He stabile," Austalian feas are severely affected by the daily and Spitfires rose to more than then said to the owner. "Have splitting their sides with you a personal toothbrush?" laughter,
He was asked to leave,
-(London Express Service);
loss of dozens of crews and the 150 "week. Dowding's problem grisly spectacle of many more was to find the men to fly and planes returning riddled by fight in them.
The motor show 196?...
THE DREADNOUGHT,
Elang Kors MODEL)
At the moment when the battle was in the balance, when the weight of Goering's steam- roller strategy was coming close to success, when Fighter Com- mand was bear to breaking point at that precise moment of crists something else broke. It was Hitler's patience.
The Fuehrer spoke and he quivering Goering did not have the guts to stand up against him.
The point and purpose of the German attack was diverted from the destruction of the Royal Air Force to the cowing and subjugation of London.
it was
the turning point
London burned;
was saved.
but Britain
WEDNESDAY: London's fight
(London Express Service)..
First non-stop
Page
Pan Am New York to Moscow Flight
navigated with help of
Rolex GMT-Master*
+
A Pan American Intercontinental Jet Clipper recently made the first non- stop flight from New York to Moscow. This fight was navigated with the help of a GMT-Master wrist chronometer watch, made by Rolex of Geneva:
THE GMT-MASTER WATCH, whose securacy is described by Pan Am Pilot-in-Charge Bernard Lorent as "excellent, well within all navigational tolerances,” is specially designed to tell the time in any two places on earth at once, Two special features-1, 24-hour bezal and a special 24-hour hand-raske this possible: GMT and local time can be read clearly and simultaneously.
Pan Am Captain C, N, Warren, Jnr., wrote of the GMT-Master used on the non-stop New York to Mos cow flight: "The flight itself was navigated by Rolex.” 20 out of 21 airline pilots vote the GMT-Master an indispensable sid. Its special features, plus chrono-
PanAm Captain C. N. Warren Jer. (right)}" with his Rolex GMT-Master, recently wed to navigate frei von-stop New Yèrk ta Boscow fight, with Captain Ralph Saváry, who also vent a GMT-Maus CATONEMKİFT.
meter accuracy, automatic winding, waterproof cast and automatic calendar make it one of the most bril- liant contributions to international timekeeping ever invented.
ROLEX
Pan Am Bles on Rolex time
Registered and patented design in all countries
Beware of counterselts — buy dały from Authorized Dealere
Only on Pan Am from Hong Kong...
JETS ON EVERY FLIGHT
TO TOKYO... 5 flights every week!
TO EUROPE...
6 flights every week via Bangkok and the Middle East...
TO THE U.S.A....a choice of 3
transpacific jet routes: via Tokyo and Honolulu;
via Tokyo and the Great Circle; via Manila and Honolulu
TO MANILA... with jet connections
to Saigon, Singapore and Djakarta
HKSELD
DAN AMERIC
Borfan
“And here we have the vary car for Hongkong, Sir — specially designed for your roads, and the price includes
a free course at the nearest army tank training ground!!!
Throughout the Pacific and 'round the world, Pan Am offers you more jets to more places than any other airline!
For reservations, call your friendly Travel Agent or Pan
Alexandra House, Hong Kong. Tel: 87081 Peninsula Hotel at Kowloon. Tel: 84008
PAN AM
F &
WORLD'S MOST EXP