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

30
Crooked Leg
BY THE END OF the French campaign, the whole of III/JG 52 had scored just
ten victories. Supporting Army Group A as part of Luftflotte 3’s
Jagdfliegerführer 3, the pilots had seen little action, so it was perhaps
something of a surprise that they had already been posted to Jever, near
Wilhelmshaven, on Germany’s North Sea coast. However, the pilots soon
began to see why. Soon after arriving at Jever, they had handed over their
Me 109 E1s and E3s and instead been given new E4 models. Leutnant
Günther Rall, for one, was impressed. The E4 had improved armour plating
around the pilot’s head, and better armament with a German-built Oerlikon
MG-FF 20 mm cannon in each wing which used an improved shell called a
‘mine-shell’ capable of carrying a much larger explosive charge – a very
useful weapon when trying to knock aircraft out of the sky. The E4 also had
an improved field of view and more storage space, which, as Günther soon
discovered, could house one-man rubber dinghies. The penny really began
to drop when they were also given new personal kit. The impractical brown
flying combination gave way to a new lightweight flying jacket and loose,
comfortable trousers with pockets large enough to hold various new lifesavers:
pocket knife, tins of concentrated Choco-cola, fishing lines and
hooks and small bags of coloured dye. There were new yellow life-jackets
too, flare pistols and a leather bandolier and cartridges that were worn
around the leg. It did not take a genius to work out that soon they would be
flying over water. ‘The next opponents we are supposed to bring to their
knees,’ noted Günther, ‘with the benefit of our new air-sea rescue
equipment are to be the British.’
For the next few days, they carried out a number of coastal patrols and
navigational exercises, all part of their preparation for their next move to
the Pas de Calais. Günther found it disorientating at first. Flying over the
sea it was easy to lose all sense of the aircraft’s flying altitude and of visual
distance. He was grateful that he had already mastered the art of flying by
dead reckoning and had some night flying under his belt. Even so, he found
himself listening a little more closely to the note of his engine, and more