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

At the mess, no-one was quite sure what was going on, but as the pilots
began to gather and there were still no orders, they decided to have
breakfast. ‘When we began at 8.10,’ Arthur scribbled in his diary, ‘we were
at Readiness 1. By the time I finished at Readiness 2. At 8.40 a.m. I was
ordered off on a photographic reconnaissance.’ Rushing to flights, he felt a
mixture of emotions: devil-may-care yet horribly scared and wildly excited
all at the same time.
Having mentally prepared himself for immediate action, Arthur was
then told that Pilot Officer Smith would be undertaking the visual recce
instead – over Venlo, where Helmut Damm and the 171st Infantry Division
were crossing into Belgium. Several tense hours followed, with Arthur and
the other pilots hanging around near their flight, waiting for news. Smith
got back at 11.30 reporting that Brussels was blazing fiercely, and that all of
the bridges along the Moselle had been blown up. ‘He also saw some nuns
running frantically along the bank,’ added Arthur. Smith had then been
attacked by an Me 110, a German twin-engine fighter, and although hit,
managed to evade his attacker by flying at only fifty feet off the ground at
285 mph, as fast as the Blenheim could take him. The only problem was
that by flying so low, he exposed himself to enemy small-arms fire and was
hit again. Fortunately, he managed to make it back to Méharicourt in one
piece.
Meanwhile, further west, the pilots and aircrew of the Advanced Air
Striking Force were also hurriedly being scrambled into the air. 1 Squadron,
part of the Advanced Air Striking Force at Vassincourt to the south-east of
Reims in northern France, had been woken at 3.30 a.m. and told to head
straight to the airfield. With conditions considerably better than 87
Squadron’s, the pilots were billeted comfortably in the nearby village of
Neuville, with a splendid mess in the Mairie. Twenty-two-year-old Billy
Drake was one of the 1 Squadron pilots who hurried straight from his digs
to the Mairie, where a lorry was waiting to take them all to the airfield.
Ever since April had turned to May, they had heard rumours that something
might soon be afoot and now, on this Friday morning, they heard aircraft
overhead as they approached the airfield.
Hurrying from the lorry, they headed over to the dispersal tent and the
‘A’ Flight commander, Flight Lieutenant ‘Johnny’ Walker, immediately
rang through to Operations to find out what was going on. With the kind of
insouciance that was a feature of 1 Squadron in particular, Johnny returned