Blue Flight
While Nos 3, 450 and 451 Squadrons operated Hurricanes in WWII, many Australian pilots flew the fighters for the RAF. In the lead up to Anzac Day LAC Keith McArdle imagines what it would have been like.

LAC Keith McArdle

... one fighter turned away to avoid the oncoming Hurricane but the other went into a slow dive, the pilot obviously having been killed ...

THEY were black specks in the distance, nothing more than what looked to be dots of blotched ink dabbed on to the bright, clear blue sky. But Matt knew that within minutes that would change.

Matthew McKenzie was a Queensland boy, born and bred in Rockhampton. It was a nice place, hot and humid in the summer, but being not too far from the ocean made up for that, he thought.

His father had taught him to fly, and by the age of 16, he could fly his father’s crop duster by himself. He was a natural pilot, if there was such a thing. He was now one of the few Australian pilots flying with the Royal Air Force.

It would have been fitting for Matt’s father, a bull of a man by the name of Chris, to have fought as a fighter pilot in the Great War. There would have been something strangely romantic about that, father and son, both fighter pilots each fighting in separate world wars. But that was not the case.

Chris had been an infantryman whose first taste of action came when he and the rest of the soldiers in his battalion went ashore on April 25, 1915, in a country called Turkey, a place up until then no one in Australia knew much about. Matt’s father had also been involved in an action called “Lone Pine”.

Through his headpiece came the crackling voice of his wing leader. “This is Blue Leader, I count eight Jerries. Four fighters, four bombers. Confirm, over.” Almost immediately the sound of Scott’s voice boomed into Matt’s ear. “I confirm, four fighters, four bombers, over.”

The familiar rush of adrenalin filled Matt’s body and he took a deep breath. Fuel level, oil pressure, altitude, ammunition check. He looked left to see Blue Three, a Hurricane flown by Rod Collins. Rod was a new pilot, having only joined the squadron last week.

There were already bets wagered by the groundies as to whether he would return from his first scramble. Like most green pilots, Rod was excited. He had finished his training and wanted to show off his skill.

Matt could see the bombers clearly now. They were about four thousand feet below the Hurricane formation and still several miles away. Matt noticed the German fighters, which were several thousand feet above and behind the bombers, peeling out of formation towards them. It had begun.

“Make ready Blue Flight, over,” Michael’s distorted, but calm voice crackled through Matt’s headpiece.

Breathing deeply, Matt pulled his oxygen mask over his face and attached it to his headpiece. Fuel level, oil pressure, altitude, ammunition check. Matt went through the checks methodically and instinctively. He glanced up through the canopy.

The rear view mirror attached to the top of his canopy was clean and had been altered for his height by the groundies. He could see nothing behind him, which was always good news.

The German fighters were screaming towards them, they had less than a minute now before the fight began.

“Blue Three, stick with us and remember your training, over,” came Blue Leader’s voice.

Before the new pilot had a chance to reply, Blue Leader’s voice came over the airwaves again. “Blue Leader in,” Matt glanced across to see Michael’s Hurricane peeling sharply into a barrel roll towards the German fighters below them. “Blue One in,” Scott’s aircraft banked steeply, following Blue Leader below him.

Matt clicked down on the transmit button. “Blue Two in.” He pulled the control stick right and back, clicking the safety catch to fire. There was a pause, then, “Blue Three in.” Rod’s voice was strained and fearful.

Two of the German fighters were heading for Blue One off to the right, a third was banking towards Blue Three. The fourth had taken an interest in Matt.

The German fighter was still below him, but ascending fast. As his opponent entered the circle of his optical sight, Matt pressed down on the trigger with his thumb.

The machine guns mounted in the wings responded immediately. Tracer rounds spat and sizzled through the air, smoke trails following them as they zipped towards the German plane.

The Jerry fighter banked sharply away from the gunfire and roared past. Matt shot a glance back to see which way his opponent turned before throwing his aircraft into a steep right bank, grunting as the change in direction hit him.

Coming about he brought the nose of the plane up until the target reticle was sitting just above the enemy aircraft.

He fired another burst, the gunfire barely audible above the roar of the engine.

Glancing behind him he noticed with relief that he was not being tailed and returned his concentration to his opponent who had gone into a steep dive.

During combat, some pilots, particularly those fresh from training, locked their concentration onto one opponent and rarely checked behind them. This was dangerous habit that a small group of pilots lost quickly, along with their life.

Like the Super Marine Spitfire, a dive was the one weakness of the Hawker Hurricane. The German 109s were fuel injected so they could turn, climb or dive at any angle.

The Hurricane, however, used a carburet, which meant a nose down dive would starve the engine of fuel and eventually stall it completely. To dive, the Hurricane had to be flown virtually inverted before it could descend sharply.

His breathing filling his ears with a deafening rasp, Matt inverted his aircraft and pulled back on the stick hard. As he did this he also adjusted the throttle back so that the engine did not overrev during the dive.

Through the blur of the propeller he could see the deep blue ocean below him. Looking through the top of his canopy Matt saw his opponent off to his right. Following him, he pulled up out of the dive and banked right, slamming the throttle forward again.

Ascending sharply, he manoeuvred the aircraft so that the gun sight was sitting just ahead of his opponent. The guns rang out again as Matt pressed down on the trigger.

There was a puff of white smoke from the engine of the 109 as it pulled out of another dive and banked right. Matt followed. He can’t have been more than 100 yards behind his enemy now.

“I have him!” Came Rod’s voice over the radio.

“This is it, this is it,” Matt was whispering to himself repeatedly, his concentration total. He was banking sharply up and to the right, the German fighter, still spewing white smoke, was just ahead of his gun sight.

As the 109 turned to the left to go back the other way in an effort to throw Matt from his tail, the aircraft entered Matt’s gun sight only for a moment.

But it was enough. The machine guns roared into life. Matt watched the seemingly noiseless explosion as fire erupted from the engine of the doomed German fighter. It banked lazily to the left and then went into a steep uncontrolled descent, slamming into the cold ocean below.

“I hit him!” shouted Rod.

Altitude one thousand feet. Unclipping his oxygen mask, Matt took a deep breath, wiping the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. Glancing up through the canopy, he watched Rod’s aircraft far above him turning sharply to follow his opponent, vapour trails streaming from the wing tips.

Fear struck Matt for a moment as he noticed that off to the right of Rod was Scott’s aircraft, only it was trailing black smoke and seemed slow and sluggish. He could see the tiny figure of Scott step onto the wing before jumping off.

A second later Scott’s parachute bloomed into life above him and he descended gently towards the ocean. “He’s flying straight the idiot! I have him here!” Rod seemed excited and confident. But he had not noticed the 109 that had downed Scott come in behind him.

“Blue three, break left! Break left!” Matt yelled into the microphone.

“But I have him!” He was too far away to do anything but Matt began to ascend quickly towards the fight in a vain effort to help. He noticed that far above Rod, Michael had peeled away from the bombers and was descending to help Rod.

“No you don’t, they have you! Watch your six o’clock! Get out of there!”

The 109 in front of Rod went into a steep dive and a second later, the enemy aircraft behind him opened fire. The German was so close to Rod when it fired that the Hurricane seemed to disintegrate.

Panels were torn from the fighter, flipping through the air like a child’s plaything. Part of the right wing was smashed from the plane and the Hurricane plummeted from the sky like a dead eagle. “Blue Three if you can hear me, get out! Get out!” Michael’s voice boomed over the airwaves, opening fire as he descended onto the German fighters.

The bullets ripped through them. One fighter turned away to avoid the oncoming Hurricane, but the second went into a slow dive, the pilot obviously having been killed by Michael’s onslaught.

There was no response from Rod and soberly, Matt watched the stricken Hurricane hammer into the ocean sending up a huge plume of water.

Not long afterwards and the last German fighter was heading for the ocean, fire and black smoke belching from the engine. Matt made a low pass over the parachute that lay sprawled in the ocean.

To the right of it he saw Scott waving at him. He waved back, turning away towards home. The bombers were too high and too far away now to catch, another airfield further inland would be scrambled to take care of them.

The flight home was quiet and sombre. They had lost a pilot and two fighter planes today, which left only 11 fighters back at the airfield.

Like Matt, Rod had probably read all the glossy pamphlets before he applied for the Royal Air Force. Being a fighter pilot sounded glorious and fun, but it was neither. The dogfights were fast and frightening. A wrong turn here, a slow decision there and you were dead.

As the grass airfield came into view, Matt reduced speed and lowered the landing gear. Increasing the flaps to 50 per cent he touched down alongside Michael’s fighter and throttled back.

The shock of a loss hit the groundies just as hard as the pilots who flew the missions and Matt watched the two groups of ground personnel waiting for Rod and Scott turn away and walk back to their hangar. After being marshalled in, Matt cut the engine.

“Oi, Rabbit!” He called out to one of the groundies after he unlatched and slid back his canopy.

“Sir?”

“We’ve got a pilot down in the channel go and tell the CO, we’ll need to get him out ASAP!”

“How did you go sir?” Asked Smithy as he climbed onto the wing to open up the gun camera flap. He had a fresh roll of film, which he would insert once the old roll had been extracted.

“Got one of them.”

“Excellent news sir!”

He noticed a Red Robin glide into a tree nearby where it chirped away happily. Suddenly startled, it flew away as the piercing sound of the bell rang out. A shudder of dread passed down Matt’s spine as he watched the groundies stream out towards the flight line followed by the four fighter pilots from green flight.

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