Dover to Pompey

Sunday August 11th, 1940

"Fighter Command had been warned of the small build up that was moving in towards the coast at Dover, radar had supplied the position and direction of the enemy formation, and the Observer Corps reported the type and strength. Park was informed that the formation consisted of 30+ Bf110 and an equal number of Bf109s."

"But the Luftwaffe plan was to attract as many of the British fighters into the air as possible at Dover while the main strike of the day was to be concentrated much further west near Portland.........."

Me-110 bombing Dover

The first mission of the night was to defend the attack on Dover which hit around 8.30am on the Sunday. After some shenanigans getting airborne, we climbed out and formed into two pairs around 14,000ft just off the coast. We had two sections of 74 Squadron Spitfires high of us looking out out for the incoming attack.

Hun in the sun

Radar reports were a bit sketchy and the bombers managed to slip through before we spotted them over the town.

Closing in

I latched on to a 110 which tried unsuccessfully to give me the slip. The ammo change I'd made, removing the ball ammunition for AP, ripped the port engine to bits and started a fire in the wing. The pilot was the only one to bail.

Going down

74 Squadron were doing a good job in keeping the fighters at bay. I did see quite a few 109's and Spits wheeling about the sky around 2000ft higher than us, but was constantly checking my six to be able to watch it for long.

Damaged - 74 squadron Spit

Splash and Swoop had made early returns to Manston, with Brigstock and I being the last ones back. We hopped into the transporter room and appeared in the ready room at Tangmere. This time flying for 601 squadron in Hurricanes.

After getting airborne, there was a few comparisons with the Spit, but we were soon began enthusing about its roll rate and how steady she felt in the air.

Radar were on their game for this raid, which was approaching the Isle of Wight from Cherbourg. The naval base at Portsmouth was the obvious target. Climbing out we saw the barrage balloons had been put up.

JU88's with Heinkels

Swoop and I patrolled the southern edge of the Isle of Wight, with Splash and Brigstock over the Solent.

We spotted the formation first, which was a couple of thousand feet higher than expected. Climbing hard we moved in.

Closing in on a large formation

The formation split and we began to work on the stragglers, finding the Hurricane the stable gun platform she was reputed to be.

All to quickly we were out of ammo and landed at the nearest airfield. As there were still aircraft in the area, I took a Spit out of Gosport and saw Splash had similar ideas.

Climbing for the Isle of Wight, there were still bombers over Portsmouth. I was joined by Brigstock at this point and we hassled the retreating bombers for a few miles before we all landed back at Tangmere.

Swoop landing his Hurricane.

A location change after the first scramble was stretching the imagination a bit, but seemed to work quite well. The Hurricane is a delight to fly and hopefully we'll be using that some more in the next few missions.

As the formation approached Portsmouth we got some slowdowns. I can only assume this was either the built up area or the ships I put in the harbour firing at the aircraft. I'll re-run this mission this weekend and remove the ships firing. I also keep forgetting to reduce the amount of bombers firing back as this too can cause some slowdowns.