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In spite of this, a few minutes later something occurred that scared the daylight out of all of us. Our dispersal area was directly across the airfield from 603 Squadron and they were arming their planes with rockets, which were attached on rails under the wings. Rockets were a new innovation and still quite unpredictable, so the armourer’s were not supposed to connect up the firing mechanism until the plane was started and at the end of the runway ready for takeoff. The reason for this precaution was because they had found that occasionally the action of starting the engines did something to the electrical system and caused the rockets to fire. On this particular day they had omitted to observe the precautionary measure and four rockets roared a few feet above our heads and landed in the desert with some beautiful explosions! Of course we had all flattened ourselves in the sand and we got up looking very sheepish! The day dragged on, but as soon as it got dark and we had eaten dinner we prepared for flying and went to the dispersal area with Steele and Clay. Two crews had already gone, starting at 6:10 p.m. and it looked as though we would all be leaving as scheduled. After Steele had gone we had 1½ hours to wait. We checked with the I.O. and discussed the possibility that we may run into more opposition in the form of German night fighters tonight. We refreshed our memory on the characteristics of the Junkers 88 (their standard night fighter) and the Junkers 188, which was a souped-up version of the 88. We must have been psychic because this discussion would stand us in good stead later that night. We went to our plane and completed our pre-flight inspection and took off at 10:45 p.m. It was a beautiful night and the flight to the western end of Crete was uneventful. As on the first night, we reduced altitude to 50 feet as we approached the enemy coast. We made landfall at Cape Gramvansa and at 12 minutes after midnight we contacted Trademark. We were told to patrol on a north/south course at 500 feet. We carried out this patrol for just over a half an hour and at 12:55 a.m., we received a call from Trademark telling us that there was a bogey approaching on a northerly course and we should go to Angels Five. I acknowledged and we started climbing as hard as we could. Shortly after, we were told to turn on to 150°, then a few seconds later to turn hard to starboard to 320°. At 1:05 a.m. we obtained a contact 3 miles ahead, to the right and very high above us. We immediately starting climbing and started our chase. Our speed was 200 mph. and we were slowly closing on the target. This was obviously not a slow moving Junkers 52. When we were at 6700 feet and a range of 2000 feet, I obtained a visual. The time was 1:10 p.m. We kept gaining slowly until the range closed to 700 feet and I recognized it as a Junkers 188, one of the enemy's fast fighter/bombers that we had heard was being used as a night fighter. It was a very fast plane and could outrun us at heights over 6000 feet. I opened fire from dead astern and saw numerous strikes on the fuselage and the starboard wing. We were getting some return fire from the enemy's tail, but it was not very accurate. The target turned to the right and started to lose height rapidly and I followed him into the turn and tried a long deflection shot. To my surprise it worked, because black smoke started pouring from the starboard engine. It was at this crucial time of the attack that our radar was affected by the gunfire and stopped working. I kept turning in the direction that we had last seen the enemy and requested help form the Controller. He replied immediately that the target was two miles to the north of us. I kept reminding Graham to keep looking behind us because I was concerned that we may have encountered two night fighters working as a pair, which turned out to be not the case. We turned north and regained contact at 1:15 a.m. The target was two miles away, below us and to starboard. We kept gaining steadily, following him down to 1500 feet. We were 1000 feet behind when I obtained visual contact again. He was now on an easterly course and appeared to be heading for the west coast of the island of Melos. I opened fire from dead astern scoring numerous strikes on the tailplane and starboard wing. Debris was breaking off the enemy and floating past us, and then the starboard engine caught fire. I broke away when we were directly above the badly damaged plane and turned to starboard. He was diving steeply toward the sea just off the coast of Melos. When we had completed our orbit we could see no further sign of him and I assumed that he must have dived straight into the water. I talked to Trademark and he said that the enemy blip had disappeared off his radar screen, which backed up our belief that he had gone in the water. We resumed patrol at 1:20 a.m. Five minutes |
