The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

and the rest of the flight arrived before they could complete the manoeuvre.
Equally fortunately, Bee somehow forgot about feeling ill the moment the
action began; adrenalin had kicked in and was proving an instant antidote.
Seconds later, he found himself firing his guns in anger for the very first
time, but at the same moment another Hurricane cut in front of him, lucky
not to be hit by Bee’s bullets. The air was now thick with tracer but then a
different twin-engine machine hurtled towards Bee from above and dead
ahead. Yanking back the stick and pressing down on the fire button, Bee
hammered a quick burst at him, and as the enemy plane zoomed past he
recognized it as an Me 110. More were following, diving down on them
right and left, and Bee just had time to half-roll out of the way of one that
was about to pounce on his tail. Every time he tried to attack one plane,
another seemed to be behind him. Rapidly tiring, he pulled his Hurricane
into a tight turn, speeding around in a circle himself until finally another
Dornier came slanting across his front, very close and looking very big.
Rolling his Hurricane back after him, Bee started to attack, but completely
forgetting to check what was behind him, he was now conscious of a
feathery line of grey fizzing past him between his cockpit and his starboard
roundel. ‘It was an Me 110 up my backside busily pumping all he had at me
and missing,’ says Bee, ‘and that put me off my stroke with this Dornier.’
Rolling away, Bee dived down well out of the fray but then noticed another
Dornier diving, trailing smoke, away to the north-east. Bee still had a few
rounds left so decided to chase it.
He was soon catching up, too, because one of the Dornier’s engines was
hit and it was steadily slowing. Filled with excitement and with his
adrenalin pumping, Bee opened fire at over 400 yards – ‘too far really’ –
and continued firing until he ran out of ammunition. Even so, the Dornier
began diving steeply, disappearing into a layer of low cloud. Still swirling
around in a very hostile sky, but with no more ammunition, he realized his
best option was to dive to the deck and, at just a few hundred feet off the
ground, hedge-hop his way back to base.
He had begun to work himself on a course that would lead back in the
direction of Lille when once again feathery lines of smoke began flitting
past his cockpit. Sliding his canopy back in order to get a better look, Bee
saw a Dornier on his tail. ‘One of these cheeky bastards had decided he was
going to chase a Hurricane with his Dornier!’ says Bee. ‘A bomber after a
fighter!’ For Bee, it was an indication of the very high morale of the