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

noted Jan, ‘when all of us had already won our wings.’ They got their own
back by partying hard at night and gaining a deserved reputation for
unruliness. Jan didn’t care. He just wanted to get in the air and shoot down
Germans. Yet however undignified and however frustrating these seemingly
puerile lessons were, they were essential all the same. The Dowding System
depended on every man and woman knowing their role, and that included
the pilots. Although the Ko ciuszko Squadron pilots were, by the middle of
August, champing at the bit, they would soon get their chance, and then all
painstaking ground training would quickly prove its worth.
Pete Brothers was convinced God was on their side. ‘It’s just one of those
things,’ he says. ‘God was there and he was looking after us.’ After almost
non-stop action since the middle of May, countless tussles and near misses,
Pete had good personal reasons to think so. Those believers in the
Luftwaffe must also have sometimes wondered whether, or at least
suspected that, the British had some untold influence on the weather. First
the millpond Channel during the Dunkirk evacuation and now an almost
unceasingly cloudy and wet summer. It was poor weather that had disrupted
plans for Adlertag, and it was poor weather once again that scuppered any
persistent heavy operations the next day. There was still activity, however.
Successive large raids hit the south-east after midday, and amongst the
raiders Walter Rubensdörffer’s Erpro 210 hit Manston yet again, destroying
two hangars, while above fighters tussled. Dolfo Galland added to his
mounting score, shooting down another Hurricane – in fact, it had been a
good day for all of JG 26, who claimed eleven downed aircraft. No less
important, only one of the Stukas they had been escorting had been shot
down.
Elsewhere, small groups of raiders pressed inland. Amongst their targets
was Middle Wallop, hit far more successfully by one Junkers 88 than by
two entire Gruppen of Stukas the day before. The pilots of 609 Squadron
had been lunching in the mess for a change when the air raid warning
sounded. Dashing out, they sped down the edge of the grass field to the
square bungalow that acted as dispersal, grabbed their parachutes and flying
helmets and dashed to their Spitfires. One section had already been up
patrolling, but David Crook and several others now sat strapped into their
planes waiting to be ordered off. Soon after, he heard the unmistakable
unsynchronized thrum of German bombers above the clouds. Immediately