COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
out and exhausted.
We never slept in our clothes again but there were other nights of
alarm before the German advance was finally halted. As for the night
intruder project it never got off the ground.
By day we continued to be thwarted by the weather. A fighter
sweep towards Aachen, conducted above an impenetrable layer of mist
and low cloud, was notable only for the number of engines which
began to run rough after more than a week on the ground. The
Luftwaffe had disappeared. And the enemy's armoured spearheads
were hidden in the murk below - totally out of reach.
Stuck between that blanket of white and the cloudless vault above
was to feel totally naked and frustrated. My engine vibrated horribly.
Drop tanks drained. Eyes searched unceasingly for enemy fighters, or
a gap in the overcast down below through which we could find
something, almost anything, to attack. We came home empty handed
and thoroughly fed up.
193 tangled with the Luftwaffe on Christmas Eve, and on
Christmas Day as well. The first occasion was a fighter sweep in the
Osnabruck area, and I was airborne as spare, determined not to miss
the fun after the fiasco over Aachen. The bomb line came and went.
No one turned back. I hung on, hoping against hope. The Rhine came
into view - and the CO was not amused:
"Spare go home NOW!"
I was furious. But there was much worse to follow. Four aircraft
turned back, with engine and other problems, minutes after my
departure. The remaining four soldiered on and were bounced by 50
plus, 109s and 190s, near Enschede. One Typhoon was never seen
again, and another was damaged, with no claims against the enemy.
197 in the same area fared even worse, losing two and one
damaged, to twelve 190s which suffered no losses in return. On
Christmas day 'B' Flight, caught by a mixed force of about 60 enemy
fighters whilst attacking a train, helped to redress the balance. The
locomotive blew up in a cloud of steam. Mike Bulleid destroyed a 190,
another was badly damaged, and the Typhoons returned without loss.
In the evening Johnny Baldwin attended Christmas dinner as our
guest. He had just received a bar to his DSO. There were speeches, and
gentle inebriation set in, but most of us went to bed early.
Derek Erasmus's skill as a leader was well demonstrated in the
destruction of an MT Repair Unit west of Arnhem. It was our last op
of the year, with twelve aircraft, and the Squadron was carrying a
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