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

August Dowding had fifty-eight squadrons with six more working up,
including one Canadian squadron, two Polish and one Czech.
Of course he was apprehensive about the fighting to come. Although
Fighter Command had acquitted itself well so far, it was obvious the
Luftwaffe had yet to attack in full strength. Chief of his worries was the
number of pilots. Sixty-four squadrons at their full establishment of twenty
pilots meant 1,280 pilots. Dowding had 1,434 on 8 August, only a small
excess, and there were nothing like enough coming through. Moreover, he
would have to send some of those new pilots to squadrons in 11 Group,
where the heaviest fighting would be taking place. There would be almost
no time for them to acclimatize, to learn essential tricks and skills before
being thrown against some of the best men the Luftwaffe had. It would, as
he was well aware, be like throwing them to the lions.
There were other concerns too, chief of which was the lack of suitable
night-fighters. It was one thing vectoring aircraft towards a target in
daylight, but quite another doing it at night, when a pilot could not rely on
eyesight to help. What was needed was airborne radar, but this was not
available. A number of squadrons had been practising night-fighting. The
two flights of 87 Squadron, for example, had been sent off in turn for a
week’s course, while 609 Squadron, amongst others, had sent its pilots up
for night patrols. So too had ‘A’ Flight from 92 Squadron, which was posted
to Bibury in the Cotswolds, much to the pilots’ disgust, for night-fighter ops
against raiders attacking Bristol, Swansea and Cardiff. Tony Bartley and the
other members of the flight were really put out about it. ‘This was the last
straw,’ noted Tony, ‘when every day we heard on the news what our old
friends in 11 Group were doing in the front line.’ Night-flying in a Spitfire
was not easy, not least because the flames from the exhaust stubs when the
aircraft started were blindingly bright. Bibury was hardly ideal either – a
small grass strip in which the only landing lights were paraffin flares and
one Chance light. There were a number of accidents and mishaps. Norman
Hargreaves got lost and had to bail out; Ronnie Fokes overshot into a brick
wall; Geoff ‘Boy’ Wellum hit a wing on the Chance light, and Tich
Havercroft ended up on his back in the middle of the flare path. Later, he
was hit by a Ju 88’s rear-gunner. They did not get a single enemy aircraft on
night ops.
Of the 107 pilots killed between 10 July and 11 August, eighteen died in
accidents, and mostly at night. Twin-engine aircraft were better for the task,