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tracer shells seemed to be lazily curling over us. I centred the gun sight on the middle engine and fired three short bursts of about two seconds each. It was a relief when all the guns fired because I had often imagined being this close to the enemy and having the guns jamb! I saw strikes on the port wing and engine and as our range was now reducing rapidly I turned away to port. The enemy glided down, struck the water and immediately burst into flames. The time was 10:50 p.m., two minutes after first sighting the enemy. I called Trademark and told him there was a plane down with many people in the water and he told me to go to Angels One and vector zero nine zero. I turned on to our new heading, somehow reluctant to leave the scene. It did not seem possible that we had caused such devastation. We flew back and forth at the direction of the Controller for almost fifteen minutes. At 11:08 p.m. we sighted two destroyers and I informed him. By the way he told me to keep clear of them I assumed they belonged to the Royal Navy and were probably acting as part of the escort for the Ulster Queen. A couple of minutes later we were on a northerly course when Trademark called and said there was a bogey crossing port to starboard, range 5 miles. I quickly acknowledged and started a turn to starboard. As we continued to turn slowly, Graham obtained a contact at a range of 3½ miles. The bogey was still to starboard and much lower than we were. I kept turning and started to lose height while Graham continued to give me directions until we were down to a height of 100 feet on a heading of 150°. Although our airspeed was down to 140 m.p.h., we closed in on the target rapidly. When our range was down to 1000 feet the other aircraft came into view. It was a 3-engine Junkers 52 land plane and we were closing very fast. I lowered the flaps a few degrees to give us more stability, but I could see that unless we acted quickly we were going to overshoot and probably lose the opportunity to get him. I told Graham to look and confirm my identification, while at the same time I lined up to attack. Graham agreed with me that it was a Junkers 52 and I immediately fired a long burst. We were now closer than 200 yards and the effect of our attack was terrifying. The enemy exploded in a huge ball of flame. There was no way to take violent evasive action and the fact that I had lowered some flap was a lifesaver because it allowed us to turn slightly quicker than normal. Without the flaps we probably would have gone into a stall because we were too low to dive to pick up speed. We flew right through the edge of the ball of fire expecting any second to be engulfed. We circled the burning wreckage for about ten minutes but there was no sign of life, which was not surprising considering the violence of the explosion. Graham and I concluded we had seen enough action for one night and it would be a good thing if things remained quiet until it was time to return to base! At 11:28 p.m. we had a call from Trademark. There were two bogeys north of us. Vector 035° and investigate. The Controller gave us directions for about seven minutes and at 11:35 p.m. Graham had a contact slightly to starboard and 3 miles ahead of us. We were just under 1000 feet altitude and closing nicely at a range of 2000 feet when the bogey disappeared hard to port. I went into a steep turn to port and called Trademark and asked for help, but he had also lost contact and we had to give up the chase. We had barely gotten back to straight and level flying when Trademark called again and said there was another target 18 miles west of us. He controlled us to within 2½ miles of the new bogey and Graham got a contact hard to starboard of us. The time was now 11:33 p.m. and we had been under Trademark's control over our allotted time of 1½ hours.
I turned hard to starboard and the range started to reduce rapidly. I again lowered some flap to reduce the speed, but now the target was only 100 feet ahead of us. It was a Junkers 52 seaplane flying very slowly. To avoid colliding I pulled along the right hand side of the enemy plane and could clearly see the unique corrugated skin and the swastikas painted on the side. The time was now 11:35 p.m. and Trademark called and told us it was time to return to base. I called back and told him we were in contact with an enemy plane and would talk to him later. There was no way we could slow down enough to get behind the enemy so I told Graham that I was going to set my gyro compass to zero on our present heading and execute a 360° turn to starboard back to the same heading. If all went well we should pick him up again a few miles ahead of us and have a chance to do a more controlled interception. We agreed to try it, so I started the turn. As we completed our circle Graham picked him up at a range of 4 miles. We were both very excited because this was a manoeuvre we had not practiced. It was a great job by Graham to pick the target up so quickly. |
