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

George Barclay had force-landed somewhere, Pat Wells was missing,
‘Boost’ Fleming had been shot down in flames, although he had been
spotted bailing out; Sergeant Killingback had bailed out but was badly
wounded, and so too was Sergeant Smithson. Sergeant Beard had also been
shot down but had bailed out. Pat was later reported to be in hospital but
Boost Fleming had been killed. Landing by parachute, he had been on fire.
Burns and shock did for him. Fighter Command lost twenty-five aircraft
and sixteen pilots killed that day, the Luftwaffe forty-one aircraft and fiftytwo
aircrew dead. But for 249 Squadron, six pilots shot down in one
afternoon was a big loss – more than a quarter of the squadron down in a
stroke. ‘The dispersal hut,’ noted Tom, ‘seemed empty that night.’
Later that evening, RV Jones went back home to Richmond, wondering
whether this was the end of everything. ‘The fires in the docks were
enormous,’ he wrote, ‘they could never be put out before nightfall. Even if
we jammed the beams completely, the night bombers would have perfect
markers, for the flames in the docks could be seen from the coast.’ It
seemed to him that all the Luftwaffe had to do was keep the fires stoked
with successive raids, while the main force pulverized the rest of central
London.
Certainly, the Luftwaffe was not finished that day, and as RV Jones had
correctly judged, the fires had not been put out by nightfall. A further raid
had arrived after 8 p.m., but although this was still in daylight, no attempt
was made to intercept it; Fighter Command was spent for one day, it
seemed. More bombers, in smaller numbers, flew over the city throughout
the night, right up until four the following morning, adding to the
difficulties of the population and firemen below. One of the night raiders
was Hajo Herrmann, leading his 9th Staffel. Incredibly, it was already his
sixty-ninth combat mission of the war. He regretted the turn on London but
had a clear conscience. He was convinced that they had done everything
possible to conduct the war as a struggle between combatants rather than
civilians. Yet British bombers had been indiscriminately bombing Germans
for some time without any retaliation, conducting what Hajo viewed as a
war of terror. He hoped that by their answering like with like, the British
might be compelled to return to warfare according to the rules. ‘That was
preached by our leaders at every level,’ noted Hajo, ‘and I, from bitter
personal experience, never had any reason to doubt it.’