FOR MARGARET First published in Great Britain in 2012 by PEN & SWORD AVIATION An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd 47 Church Street Barnsley South Yorkshire S70 2AS Copyright © Philip Kaplan, 2012 9781783830336 The right of Philip Kaplan to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Printed and bound in England By CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation, Pen & Sword Family History, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Pen & Sword Discovery, Pen & Sword Politics, Pen & Sword Atlas, Pen & Sword Archaeology, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe True Crime, Wharncliffe Transport, Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics, Leo Cooper, The Praetorian Press, Claymore Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk Table of Contents Dedication Title Page Copyright Page INTRODUCTION SHOOTER GENERAL BOTHA A NEW YORK MINUTE FLIGHT TRAINING KIWI SPITFIRE HORNCHURCH TEN COMMANDMENTS FINGER-FOUR KEEP UP WITH ME BIGGIN HILL COMBAT REPORT FLYING SPRINGBOK ON SCREEN THE BLITZ LEGEND TORCH COMMANDO REMEMBERING SAILOR BIBLIOGRAPHY The author is particularly grateful to the following people for their kind, generous assistance in the research, preparation, and development of this book: Malcolm Bates, Geoff Barlow, Tony Bianchi, Kazmierz Budzik, Alan Deere, Bob Doe, Hugh Dundas, Royal Frey, Adolf Galland, James Goodson, Roger Hall, Eric Holloway, Charles Hewitt, Jack Ilfrey, Hargi and Neal Kaplan, Brian Kingcome, Walker Mahurin, Eric Marsden, Judy and Rick McCutcheon, Merle Olmsted, Geoffrey Page, Gunther Rall, Jeffrey Simmons, Peter Townsend, Hubert Zemke. Grateful acknowledgement to the following for the use of their text: David Bourne, D.S. Brookes, Stephen Bungay, Winston S. Churchill, Alan Deere, Len Deighton, Derek Dempster, Lovat Dickson, Sholto Douglas, Hugh Dowding, R.M.B. Duke-Woolley, John Freeborn, Wilfrid Gibson, Jonathan Glancey, Alex Henshaw, D.C. Inglis, Ira Jones, David Masters, May Morton, Edward R. Murrow, William Nasson, Cuthbert Orde, Keith Park, Ernie Pyle, Jeffrey Quill, Quentin Reynolds, W.M. Skinner, Henry Szczesny, Robert Stanford Tuck, Oliver Walker, John G. Winant, Derek Wood. INTRODUCTION “Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our British institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will shrink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’ ” —Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 18th June 1940 Sailor Malan and his pilots pressed on with the fight in the daylight skies over southeast England, adding almost daily to the toll of enemy aircraft brought down, and to their own combat losses. Later that autumn, rains came; the Germans increased the pace of their bombing raids on London. The final phase of the Battle of Britain began. “Taking a Spitfire into the sky in September 1940 was like entering a dark room with a madman waving a knife behind your back.”—Sailor Malan