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    What the RAF Airman Took to War
    What the RAF Airman Took to War
    What the RAF Airman Took to War
    Ebook120 pages36 minutes

    What the RAF Airman Took to War

    By Bill Howard and Michael H. Wagner

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    About this ebook

    Between July and October 1940, in what became known as the Battle of Britain, a nation held its breath while the pilots of the Royal Air Force battled Hitler's Luftwaffe in the skies above England. A huge number of airmen lost their lives in this hard-fought episode and in the four years of air campaigns that followed, and those who survived faced terrifying risks; as Prime Minister Winston Churchill put it, 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few'. In this beautifully illustrated tribute to 'The Few', Bill Howard catalogues the objects which were essential to every wartime pilot, from the superstitious good-luck charm to the parachute on which his life might have depended and a wealth of other poignant items relating to his day-to-day existence during the air war against the Nazis.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateMay 10, 2015
    ISBN9781784420772
    What the RAF Airman Took to War
    Author

    Bill Howard

    Bill Howard is a retired Oklahoma City businessman. He published the first of the Rick Wade mystery series, Rick Wade:Investigations/Murder in the City, just after his 83rd birthday. Two of the books are published and the third it ready to be published. The fourth is in progress. Bill and his wife, Juanita, live in the Shawnee Twin Lakes area near Shawnee, Oklahoma. A widower for eight years after the passing of his late wife, he and Juanita married five years ago and their blended family consists of eight children, sixteen grandchildren and fourteen great grandchildren. Being reared in the small town of Coweta, Oklahoma during the depression years there was little time and money for entertainment so reading was a major source of enjoyment. Reading the mysteries of the earlier writers fascinated Bill and whetted his desire to write. Finally, fully retiring at the age of seventy five, he had the opportunity to fulfill that dream.

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    • 5/5
      A pleasant quick read containing lots of interesting tidbits on the RAF in WWII.

    Book preview

    What the RAF Airman Took to War - Bill Howard

    THE RAF AT WAR

    Much has been written about the pilots who served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War. While ‘The Few’ were recognised as the saviours of England even as the bombs fell, Great Britain successfully resisted the German attacks with a national response. The latter included the commitment of pilots of the RAF Fighter, Bomber and Coastal commands, the Royal Navy, as well as that of the people of England.

    Because of the romantic image of the fighter pilot, RAF aviators captured much of the glory in the war’s early days – they provided an inspiring example. But although the pilots gained much of the credit for victory in what became known as the Battle of Britain, it is a legacy that has been challenged in recent years. Some historians have given credit to the Royal Navy for dissuading Hitler from invading Britain, while others have argued that the Battle of Britain was won not so much by ‘The Few’, but by the many – the tenacious British citizenry who were determined to see that democracy would continue in Europe even as the Axis forces conquered one country after another from 1939 to 1940.

    Hurricane fighters of No. 242 Squadron at Duxford. This Hurricane crashed on 28 March 1941, killing its pilot, Arthur William Smith.

    The everyday heroism displayed by the people of Great Britain was inspired and sustained by the brave example exhibited by the RAF. Whether British born or as refugees from nations already conquered by the Axis forces, RAF pilots were motivated to engage the enemy for a variety of reasons. Some were determined to defend their homeland, while the Belgian, French, Czech and Polish RAF pilots sought to avenge what had already been inflicted upon their nations, and to try to turn the tide of fortune. American, Canadian and Commonwealth nation pilots saw what was happening over Britain as a battleground for democracy and understood that if the Axis powers were not defeated, the war would expand. Regardless of national identity or individual motivation, RAF pilots fought with fierce tenacity.

    A German Bf 109E-1, downed near Lewes in August 1940. Unterofficer Leo Zaunbrecher survived the crash and was captured.

    There was a great deal of stress inherent in the operations. Pilots were awakened to begin a day’s work that would not end until sunset. Transported out to the airfields, they would wait for the ‘scramble’ call in full kit, playing card games or reading newspapers to pass the time. When the telephone rang, the pilots would sprint to their planes and be strapped into their seats. The fighters would rumble down grassy runways to gain speed for take-off. Once in the air, just a few minutes of combat could exhaust a pilot flying at 30,000 feet in an unpressurised aircraft. The noise of battle and the roar of engines pounded on eardrums and the G-forces associated with the violent twists and turns of dogfighting brought the pilots to the verge of blacking out. They needed to focus all of their energy and concentration on flying while their body endured incredible physical forces. Every pilot knew the dangers of combat flying – they had lost friends and comrades in fiery crashes or seen young lives ruined by wounds and the disfigurement caused by burning cockpits. War took its toll on these young men every day.

    RAF pilots re-enacting a ‘scramble’ in 1946. Note the pilot (second left) carrying a squadron dog in his arms.

    Pilot Officer Peter Parrott remembered: ‘once you were in action, you were too busy trying to shoot something down or trying not to be shot down yourself to be frightened.’ Pilot Officer John Ellacombe recalled:

    [T]here were fourteen, fifteen hours of daylight each day. You were on duty right through. Chaps were being lost all the time. We had seventeen out of twenty-three killed or wounded in my squadron in less than three weeks. We had another eight aircraft shot down with the chaps unhurt, including myself twice. It was a fight for survival. There was a tremendous ‘twitch’. If somebody slammed a door, half the chaps would jump out of their chairs. There were times when you were so tired, you’d pick up your pint of

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