I enquired what he had seen of the RAF. He replied: “I never saw the RAF”. It was said without rancour, but others were more expressive. The New Zealand Spitfire pilot “Al” Deere forced-landed in Belgium. Eventually he boarded a destroyer and was taken to the wardroom. It was packed with Army officers and he was greeted with stony silence.
Deere recalled in his book Nine Lives that he asked: “Why so friendly, what have the RAF done?”
“That’s just it,” was the answer. “What have they done? You are about as popular in this company as a cat in the prize canary’s cage.”
These comments no doubt reflected how the people concerned perceived the situation at the time. Many of the entries in the Database demonstrate how much the RAF did strive to prevent the Luftwaffe attacking the escaping troops and the ships sent to their aid.
For instance, the mini-biography of Squadron Leader Ron Lees of No 72 Squadron contains the following:
“Over Dunkirk on June 2 1940, Lees destroyed a Ju 87. He reported firing a two-second burst at approximately 200 yards and then the Ju 87, ‘… stall turned, I did an aileron turn and followed opening fire at approx.100 yards … swinging in to dead astern. Pieces started to fly off the E/A. … The E/A went into a right hand diving turn. I followed and closed to approx. 75 yards range. … I gave a long burst of approx. 6 secs. During this burst the E/A burst into flames. I followed it down and watched it hit the ground …’ Lees expended the rest of his ammunition on another Ju 87, already under attack.”
On the morning of 28 May Sergeant Samuel Butterfield was in one of nine Hurricanes of No 213 Squadron patrolling Dunkirk. In a vivid account Butterfield reported that: “Towards the end of our patrol, about 9 Me109s were sighted. A dogfight ensued and an Me109 sailed in front of me and started climbing away from me. I opened fire at 100 yards and the second burst set him on fire. I then turned right onto another Me109 and fired one burst from astern; his port wing folded up. As I levelled out a Ju 88 flew across my path. I did a quarter attack on him. His starboard engine emitted black smoke and he half rolled into the sea.”
Eventually, overwhelmed, Butterfield baled out into the water. He was picked up by a paddle steamer and landed at Margate.
“Dunkirk” has become a synonym for “BEF evacuation”, but, of course, the British Army and the RAF went on fighting in France well after Operation Dynamo finished on 4 June. Allied troops and civilians escaped from a considerable number of Channel ports. Operation Aerial, the evacuation in western France, began on 15 June. Two days earlier RAF aircraft, still based across the Channel, launched a major effort in support of the French on the River Marne
It was not until 19 June, for example, that the Hurricanes of No 501 Squadron left Dinard in Brittany for Jersey. Two days were spent there before the squadron took up residence at Croydon.
Criticised deeply unfairly though it was, the RAF’s reputation for potency held up in some places. In mid-June a Royal Navy officer* witnessed an encounter at the tip of the Gironde estuary near Bordeaux. His superior, Commander Ian Fleming, later to achieve some repute as a writer of spy stories, berated merchant skippers unwilling to help refugees, many of them Jewish.
“if you don’t take these people on board and transport them to England, I can promise you that if the Germans don’t sink you the Royal Air Force will,” declared Fleming. His bluff was not called and the refugees were saved.
When the Battle of Britain began, people on the ground witnessed the heroism of Fighter Command, and aircrew lacking popularity in May and June became some of “the Few” of July to October.
Geoff Simpson, FRHistS
* The story is told in Ian Fleming by Andrew Lycett, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995.
