COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
squadrons. For those like myself, who had been forced to learn on the
job, it was a golden opportunity.
Dive bombing, so far, had been a matter of trial and error, and the
continuity provided by four practice bombs, on frequently repeated
sorties, was an enormous help. The steepest possible attack, pressed
well home, proved to be the most accurate. Gravity drop was minimal
and the compensation required, by pulling the nose through the target,
was correspondingly less. From then on it became my standard
technique.
Low level bombing practice was too easy. It failed to simulate the
weight and inertia of a high explosive bomb. On ops we had to release
them into a pretty substantial object, or make the final approach in a
shallow dive, otherwise they were liable to ricochet. A few SOOlb
casings filled with concrete might have been useful for training.
Practice RPs were fitted with 601b concrete heads. Accurate flying
was essential as they were highly sensitive to slip or skid. Range and
angle of dive were equally critical in order to get the correct gravity
drop. To help with the latter the graticule of the standard reflector
sight was rotated in azimuth, until the image on the windscreen had
been turned through 90°. The inner (top) end of the lower range bar
became the RP aiming point and the range bar control itself was
recalibrated in angles of dive 30°, 45°, 6(r etc. Thus providing an
adjustable sight line, raising the aircraft nose as the dive became
shallower and vice versa.
As practice brought improvement my own sortie averages came
down to six yards with RP, seven yards low level, ten yards dive
bombing, and twenty two yards flying number three in a section
attack. What the others achieved individually I never discovered,
because there were no published results, but the Squadron average was
better than twenty five yards low level and thirty yards dive bombing.
A reasonable basis on which to go back to war.
When we caught up with the Wing at Antwerp the enemy was still
holding out in the northern suburbs of the city. The docks had been
captured almost intact and the fight was on to clear the way for
shipping. The Germans, well aware of what was at stake, were doing
their utmost to prevent this happening. They hung on doggedly, even
on the south bank of the Scheldt estuary, where they were totally cut
off.
We took our first casualty attacking the coastal batteries at
Breskens. It happened with sudden and unexpected violence. Fire and
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