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

however, all the pilots made it back, even John, whose Spitfire was trailing
white smoke from his glycol coolant and had an engine on the point of
seizure.
Yet while this mass of German fighter aircraft engaged one squadron after
another, the bombers, escorted by I/JG 2 amongst others, pressed on
towards Portland. The bombers were immediately pounced on by
Hurricanes of 213 Squadron. Above, Siegfried Bethke and his 2nd Staffel
now dived in turn on Hurricanes of 87 Squadron as they arrived on the
scene. Siegfried had seen them as he and his Staffel had been flying at
around 4,000 metres. ‘They were flying in pretty tight formation,’ he jotted,
‘almost peacefully.’ Coming up behind without being spotted, he opened
fire. ‘It broke into pieces after the first shot,’ noted Siegfried. ‘I had to pull
away hard to avoid hitting it.’ This was Voase Jeff, Bee Beamont’s flight
commander, an ace and veteran of France. He had been due to be married in
ten days’ time. The Hurricanes now took evasive action and the
Messerschmitts ‘burst’, breaking into their two-man Rotten. Siegfried,
almost by chance, found himself behind another Hurricane, this time the
Australian, Johnny Cock. A cannon shell hit the Hurricane and it caught
fire. ‘As I was turning away,’ added Siegfried, ‘I’m quite sure I saw the
pilot bailing out with his parachute.’ He was right; Johnny was later fished
out of the sea, minus his trousers, which he had discarded to make it easier
to swim, much to the great amusement of the rest of the squadron.
Siegfried had now had enough. One of his pilots had already gone down
into the sea, another was hit and struggling back across the Channel.
Feeling rather tense and nervy, he decided to head back home. Little
damage had been caused at Portland, although smoke was now billowing
into the sky. ‘We had about eighty kills,’ noted Siegfried later once they
were back on dry land. It was, of course, a massive overestimation; in fact,
the RAF had lost twenty-eight aircraft during the entire day’s fighting. That
was still no small number – almost one and a half squadrons. Fighter
Command, for its part, shot down thirty-eight German planes. This,
however, had been just the prelude. Eagle Day was now almost upon them.