The RAF fought “The Battle of Convoy Peewit” after German radar picked up the convoy and attacks were launched by both E boats and the Luftwaffe. The aerial battle was particularly intense off the Isle of Wight at lunchtime. Another major assault took place off Swanage in the late afternoon and the convoy suffered considerable casualties.

There were Fighter Command losses too, including the No 257 Squadron Hurricane of Sergeant Kenneth Smith, which fell into the sea off St Catherine’s Point. The pilot was killed and is remembered on the Runnymede Memorial. Remarkably, though, two days later “Lord Haw Haw” broadcast Smith’s name and address on German radio, stating that he was a Prisoner of War. This caused Kenneth Smith’s mother to leave his room untouched for many years, convinced that he would one day return home.

Another familiar scene from the Battle created by the fighting off Swanage was the sight of a wrecked Spitfire on its nose in a Dorset field. Sergeant Denis Robinson of No 152 Squadron was unscathed.