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

The prospects do not look good for invasion,’ Jock Colville hastily
scribbled in his diary that same Sunday. ‘Pouring rain and a gale brewing
up.’ Not for the first time that summer, the weather seemed to be very much
favouring the defenders.
Siegfried Bethke would have agreed. ‘Days too quiet, always waiting,’
he jotted on 18 September, ‘weather always too unfavourable.’ Three days
later he wrote, ‘Yesterday no mission because of weather. Bad again today.’
On the 23rd the weather had forced him to land at Le Havre after a brief
local flight. Finally, on the 24th, he flew two missions, on the first
encountering nothing and the second a ‘light encounter’ with Spitfires.
But whenever it was dry, there was still plenty of aerial activity. On 18
September, three large raids had come over from the Pas de Calais. That
day, Tony Bartley was shot down. He was firing at a Dornier, pressing
down on the gun button rather longer than he should have in an effort to
shoot the bomber down, and forgot the cardinal rule about watching his
back. A cannon shell suddenly exploded behind his armour plating, a bullet
tore through his leather helmet, grazing his head and smashing into the
gunsight, and several more punched into his oil and glycol tanks, and then
an Me 109 flashed past him.
With fumes quickly filling his cockpit, he knew that his plane was
doomed and prepared to bail out. But as was doing so he saw his attacker
lining up again and, realizing his adversary could well shoot him as he
tumbled free, quickly sat back down in the seat and turned towards him.
The ruse worked, and having fired a burst for good measure, he saw the
Messerschmitt turn away. By this time, however, he was too low to jump so
picked out a field and hoped for the best.
He was still a hundred feet off the ground when the engine seized.
Blinded by oil, Tony hit the ground moments later, was catapulted out and
landed in a haystack completely unhurt, apart from the graze to his head. He
had had a remarkably close shave, actually and metaphorically. Releasing
the buckle of his parachute he discovered he had been even luckier. As his
parachute fell to the ground, the pack burst open, shredded silk billowing
across the ground. ‘If this fellow hadn’t come at me again,’ he says, ‘I
would have jumped and I would have killed myself because one of his
shells had ripped my parachute to pieces.’ Soon surrounded by several
locals, he was escorted to the pub, plied with beer and then whisky and