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Articles
THE FIRST NINE DAYS OF A SUMMER MONTH by Dean Sumner
The Battle of Britain officially
began on Wednesday 10th July 1940, but fierce air
combats in the summer skies around Dover regularly raged during
the first nine days of that month and RAF fighter pilots were
losing their lives or suffering debilitating wounds.
The added
sadness for these young men is that they were killed ‘too soon’,
or declared not fit
 enough to fly operationally again and thus
their names are not found listed with the celebrated ‘Few’
of Fighter Command. Dover remembers with pride and gratitude
those who gave all they had to give during the first nine days
of July.
German air activity during the
early summer across the British Isles was both widespread and
varied, mostly concentrated on reconnaissance and sporadic
bombing raids resulting in numerous skirmishes with defending
RAF fighters. Not to be outdone the Dover anti-aircraft gunners
claimed three Dornier Do17 bombers shot down on the opening day
of July.
Other targets the Luftwaffe were
keen to strike against were the convoys of the Merchant Navy
that frequently passed through the Straits of Dover, often with
non-existent or minimal Royal Navy protection. The RAF was not
willing to mount exhausting constant air cover and could ill
afford losing pilots over the sea, but the convoys could not be
left to fend off attacks entirely on their own. The confident
and thus far all-conquering Luftwaffe nevertheless hoped to
entice up the ‘Tommies’ in their Hawker Hurricanes and
Supermarine Spitfires for duels to gain air superiority.
On Thursday 4th July a
convoy of around nine ships passed within sight of Dover at 2pm
and without warning about 20 Dorniers with a large escort of
Messerschmitt Me109 fighters arrived and cunningly hung around
within sight of the convoy to await a response from the RAF. It
soon came as Hurricanes of 79 Squadron based at Hawkinge climbed
into the air to tackle the enemy raiders.
 Though heavily outnumbered the RAF
fighters started to intercept and fire upon the Dorniers, but
were then set upon by the Messerschmitts and had to fight hard
to defend themselves. Tragically, 25 years old Sergeant Pilot
Henry Cartwright (right) from Wigan, already awarded a Distinguished
Flying Medal for valiant and successful action over France, was
hit high above St. Margaret’s Bay and he plummeted down in his
Hurricane into the sea to remain forever ‘missing’. The
surviving Hurricanes managed to escape relatively unscathed
without claiming any enemy aircraft; one ship in the convoy was
hit, but managed to beach itself at Deal.
Three days later on Sunday 7th
July further tragedy struck 79 Squadron as another convoy
plodded eastwards along the English Channel and it was late into
the evening when the merchant vessels passed Dover. Moments
earlier 65 Squadron from Hornchurch suffered appalling losses
reaped on them by the deadly Messerschmitts, who sent three
Spitfires and their doomed pilots to watery graves off
Folkestone.
 Across the Channel, yet another
large formation of Dornier bombers were heading out over the Pas
de Calais in preparation to target the convoy when 79 Squadron
were ordered up to patrol over Dover at 8,000 feet. Squadron
Leader John Joslin (left) aged 24 and originally from Manitoba in
Canada, was last to get airborne off the grass at Hawkinge;
climbing hard and endeavouring to catch up with his squadron he
suddenly came under attack from behind and his Hurricane caught
fire. Realising they were being attacked, some of the squadron
turned to face the ‘enemy’ but to their horror found Spitfires.
In shock they watched their leader fall away in flames and crash
into the ground at Chilverton Elms, just to the west of Dover.
To add to the tragic circumstances, a national newspaper later
reported on the drama of the shooting down of a ‘Messerschmitt’,
seemingly unaware it was in fact a much-respected RAF Squadron
Leader who had been killed.
The next day and still pondering
the awful loss of their Squadron Commander, luck yet again
deserted 79 Squadron who set out to patrol the Dover area in the
mid-afternoon and found a thick cloud layer. Enemy aircraft were
reported in the vicinity but the squadron failed to make any
interceptions, and on being ordered to land back at Hawkinge,
some Messerschmitt Me109’s sneaked up on the rear of the
formation and picked off two Hurricanes.
 Pilot Officer John Wood
(right) was hit
first and he managed to bale out of his blazing and falling
fighter to drift down into the sea near Dover on the end of his
parachute. A Naval Patrol Boat reached him soon after but sadly
found him dead as a result of horrific burns he had sustained.
 Flying Officer Edward ‘Tubby’
Mitchell (left) faced an equally appalling demise. His Hurricane also
caught fire and possibly due to a damaged canopy he could not
bale out and so instead valiantly attempted to fly his stricken
fighter back over the coastline. This he succeeded to do and
force-landed in a field at Temple Ewell, just to the north-east
of Dover; the Hurricane however started to burn fiercely and
still trapped in the cockpit unable to move the canopy, the poor
RAF pilot was burnt alive and beyond recognition. He could only
be identified by the serial numbers stamped on the remains of
the Browning machine-guns of the cremated fighter plane.
Both P/O Wood and ‘Tubby’ were
later buried in Hawkinge Cemetery, where today they rest
side-by-side.
The ill-fortune suffered by 79
Squadron proved not to be the only RAF losses this day in the
skies around Dover. Three Spitfires of Blue Section from 610
‘County of Chester’ Squadron at Biggin Hill were also in action;
several miles out to sea from Dover at around 2pm they arrived
to conduct a convoy patrol and almost immediately engaged a
formation of unescorted raiding Dorniers. The RAF pilots
succeeded in spoiling the aim of the Luftwaffe attackers whose
bombs fell wide of the convoy, but the defending cross-fire from
some of the German gunners caught Pilot Officer Arthur Raven and
his Spitfire erupted in flames and fell towards the sea.
The shot down RAF fighter pilot was
reportedly seen in the water and attempting to swim, but rescue
never came and it is assumed he drowned as he was never found.
P/O Raven is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.
Later that same afternoon,
Spitfires of 65 Squadron were scrambled from Hornchurch to
intercept enemy raiders near Dover. The squadron records
described what happened as follows: “Squadron Leader Cooke,
who was leading the patrol, took his Section through cloud, and
when the rest of his Section emerged he was nowhere to be seen;
attempts were made to contact him over the R/T, but he was
neither seen or heard of again”. It is thought a prowling
Messerschmitt was again responsible and yet another ‘missing’
RAF pilot has his name commemorated at Runnymede.
In a twist to this tale, it was
planned for Sqn/Ldr Desmond Cooke formally to hand over command
of the squadron to Dovorian
‘Sam’ Sawyer, but the events of the
day denied this pleasant occurrence. Sqn/Ldr Sawyer’s command of
the Squadron was only to last less than a month before he too
lost his life in action. His commemoration on Dover’s Virtual
Memorial tells the same tale of
compassion and bravery.
 Tuesday 9th July was to
prove another day of tough pre-Battle of Britain dog-fighting
when more pilots of Fighter Command would be killed or wounded
and miss by mere hours the accolade to be ‘One of The Few’.
Convoy patrols were still making great demands of the RAF
throughout the day and into the evening and at just before 7pm,
‘A’ Flight from 54 Squadron consisting of six Spitfires departed
Rochford near Southend to patrol around North Foreland.
They met a Luftwaffe Heinkel He59
floatplane in Red Cross markings supposedly tasked in searching
for downed aircrew along with a heavy escort of Messerschmitt
Me109’s. In the ensuing battle, the Heinkel was forced down
damaged upon The Goodwin Sands and two confirmed and two
unconfirmed Messerschmitts also fell to the guns of the RAF
Spitfires.
However three of the Spitfires were
in turn lost during the intense fight with two of them crashing
near Manston with the loss of one pilot. The other Spitfire that
did not return to Rochford was that being flown by 24 years old
Pilot Officer Sydney Evershed from Derbyshire. Unable to escape
the withering fire of a Messerschmitt, he was possibly killed
inside the cockpit of his aircraft; as the doomed RAF fighter
arched down towards the Channel Sea, the pilot made no attempt
to escape and residents of Dover watched as yet another brave
British airman went hurtling down to a watery grave. P/O
Evershed would not be the last. Unbeknown then to both the RAF
and their Luftwaffe adversary, the next morning would herald the
beginning of the Battle of Britain.
This article
first appeared in précised form under the title "Remember the
Others" in The Dover Mercury, 30 June 2011. Reproduced
with permission
Dean is a volunteer
for the Shoreham Aircraft Museum, near Sevenoaks, and
super-supporter of The Dover War Memorial Project
Illustrations:
Hurricane Mark I Serial Number R4118 by Adrian Pingstone from
Wikimedia Commons
Pictures of The "First Few" from the collection of Dean Sumner -
from top to bottom, Sergeant Pilot Henry Cartwright, Squadron
Leader John Joslin, Pilot Officer John Wood, and Flying Officer
Edward ("Tubby") Mitchell
Dornier Do 17, photo from Bundesarchive Bild 1011-342-0603-25
Ketelhohn CC-BY-SA 1940 via Wikimedia Commons
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