bentley priory - Spink

THE BENTLEY PRIORY BATTLE OF BRITAIN TRUST APPEAL CHARITY AUCTION
after the undercarriage retracted the Earth vanished, and they
were cocooned in white vapour. It was an eerie feeling, as if
they were hanging motionless in a ghostly void, with only the
needles of the instruments to tell them what was happening.
Within minutes Starlight had vectored them on to a bandit,
and soon between layers of cloud John had a Heinkel in sight
1,000 yards ahead.
This was no sitting duck. Suddenly, the Heinkel whipped
over into a steep left turn, enabling the gunners to fire a
broadside as they flashed past about a hundred yards away on
the Beaufighter’s beam. In a flash, John pulled round in a
violent turn which put heavy ‘g’ on Jimmy, ramming him
down hard into his seat. John instinctively knew that this
German pilot knew his stuff, and his crew likewise.
The Heinkel had already disappeared into the mist and
Jimmy, dazzled by the glare outside, could not decipher
anything on his radar displays. Almost a minute had gone by,
and he had lost contact. John called Starlight for help. They
had tracked the bandit flying north, near Shaftesbury. Jimmy
was annoyed at his failure to maintain contact, and resolutely
kept his head down, concentrating on his AI set.
Starlight produced more vectors, and the chase continued.
Suddenly John saw the Heinkel again, and closed in on him
with ruthless determination. Jimmy, realising that this was
going to be a duel between champions, put on his sunglasses,
which he carried for daytime practice, so that he could see
what was going on. He was just in time to see the Heinkel
whip past, heeling over at a staggering angle, with the
gunners blazing away off-target. John was saving his
ammunition in his usual fashion until he was within lethal
range.
Jimmy turned back to his set, and now, when he removed his
glasses, the blip showed up clearly. The Heinkel pilot
straightened up, apparently thinking that he had thrown off
his pursuers. He must have been amazed and shocked when
John re-appeared behind him yet again a few minutes later.
But he did not panic, and again turned to the attack, a sound
tactic. The Heinkel’s engines were clearly at full power. This
time John held his turn inside the bandit, determined not to
give an inch. The turns became tighter and tighter, until the
Heinkel seemed to be upside-down over their heads. The ‘g’
forces were becoming intolerable, and the tactics were
becoming a ‘winding match’, John’s term for two aircraft
trying repeatedly to out-turn each other. Eyeballs drag in
their sockets, and neck muscles ache with the effort it takes to
look at dials and instruments. Breathing becomes laboured,
proving that the aircraft can take more ‘g’ than the crew.
Relentlessly, John continued to haul the Beaufighter round
the sky.
Finding that he could not out-turn the Beaufighter, the
Heinkel dropped the thwarted tactic, and resorted to twisting
and diving... He would disappear under John’s wing, and
then re-appear on the opposite track, flashing past at
impossible angles.
The contest had developed into a death-or-glory duel
between two absolute masters of their machines. The entire
fuselage of the Beaufighter vibrated, the sleeve-valve engines
no longer making a soft booming sound but howling as
airspeed built up. The needles of the altimeter raced
backwards around the dial, while the blind-flying panel had
gone crazy and the artificial horizon had gone haywire and
‘thrown in the sponge.’
John muttered, ‘Hm... this isn’t good enough’ very quietly,
talking half to himself. Calmly, he looked at the instruments
interpreting the message they were trying to tell him. ‘Now...
let me see... left bank... that’s better.’ Jimmy suddenly saw
the Heinkel again as it flashed past apparently heading
straight downwards. A quick glance at the AI set told him
that they were frighteningly close to high ground, which rose
up to 900 feet. As he watched the blip from the Heinkel it
disappeared in the foliage of ground returns. Starlight could
do nothing, and the blip had vanished from their own
cathode-ray tube.
Jimmy, exhausted, searched for a homing beacon on the AI
set. John who could resist feeling exhausted, felt his way
gently down through the clouds... It was a relief to get back
to Middle Wallop after two-and-a half hours of highly
charged flying. When they broke off the engagement, John
had the Beaufighter at over 340mph indicated, which was
very high in these blind low-level conditions with a toppled
horizon.
News soon came through that the Heinkel had ‘gone in’ on
the high ground of the sodden slopes of Cranborne Chase.
Apparently it had broken out of cloud cover at a few hundred
feet, diving almost vertically, and failed by only a few feet to
pull out in time. They found the wreckage close to the lonely
village of Alvediston. Intelligence later discovered that the
pilot had been Hauptmann Siegfried Langer, the
Commanding Officer of 7 Staffel of KGr. 100. Throughout
the battle John had not fired a single shot, so the encounter
was truly a match between champions.’ (ibid)
Definitely Time For A Rest
A few weeks later Cunningham was told that he was due a
‘rest’, he had been on operational flying for the best part of
three years straight; usually a rest posting was given after 18
months to 2 years in Fighter Command; Cunningham was to
be posted to Headquarters, No. 81 Group - the training
group of Fighter Command; just before leaving Middle
Wallop he received a Bar to his D.S.O.; Cunningham was to
be tasked with directing the work of all the night-flying
OTUs; he decided that this was a job which required
assistance, and as a consequence managed to pull a few
strings to get Rawnsley posted with him; neither enjoyed
their new desk job, and it was decided that it would be better
to tour the various OTUs and have personal contact with the
pupils and the instructors, ‘the only practical way of visiting
them was by air. Initially they used the Group’s Oxford, but
then John arranged with 604 Squadron to have his beloved
Beaufighter on loan.
Then they felt happy and free, flying above the weather and
making their way from one radar beacon to another as they
traversed the country to visit the OTUs. Instructors and
pupils alike watched with awe John’s faultless touchdowns
and short landing runs, and listened with even greater respect
to his suggestions and advice.’ (ibid)
85 Squadron - Mosquitos At Last
Thankfully for both Cunningham and Rawnsley their brief
sojourn with paperwork was only to last six months; in
January 1943 Cunningham was given the command of 85
Squadron, and Rawnsley was to go with him as the
squadron’s Navigator Leader; Cunningham arrived at
Hunsdon to find the squadron in need of a shake up; several
of the existing crews were due for a rest and through his
connections Cunningham managed to get some of the crews
that he had worked with in 604 Squadron to transfer in;
things started to look up when the Squadron was equipped
with the improved AI Mk VIII in March 1943, and with the
move to West Malling, Kent, in May, ‘This was a plum
posting, because the Squadron would be defending the
famous Biggin Hill sector, and there was plenty of trade
coming in from the short and direct route on the southeastern
approach to London from the Channel ports.’ (ibid)
The Luftwaffe started to employ the Focke-Wulf 190, a new
and very fast fighter-bomber, ‘these aircraft began carrying
out hit-and-run raids by both day and night.... Having a small
wingspan, the 190 was difficult to locate, and, particularly
once it had dropped its wing tanks and large bomb which was
carried under its belly, it was very difficult to catch. It had the
advantages of speed, size and manoeuvrability, and a sudden
dash across the narrow Strait of Dover was going to make it
an extremely hard target. The modus operandi of night
interception had been based on kills by stealth, but it would
need great skill and luck to knock down 190s that way.’ (ibid)
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