They moved first to Ismailia then
later to Helwan near Cairo. By mid-September, Headquarters RAF, Middle East (to whom the Squadron was attached)
decided to equip the Squadron with two flights of Gloster Gladiators
and one flight of Lysanders.
Lysanders over Cairo
Before long, the Lysanders proved to
be inadequate for reconnaissance missions due mainly to a lack
of speed, armour and armaments. The
only really safe way to operate them was found to be with fighter
escorts, or in areas free of enemy
aircraft. So their use was limited, although they were better than nothing
during those first two months before Hurricanes were made available
to the Squadron. England, of
course, had been fighting for her life since the Battle of Britain
began on the 2nd of July and every Hurricane manufactured by the
Hawker factory in Weybridge was dedicated to protecting the English
skies.
Like it or not, the Gladiators were
the only work-horses available.
Their work
started in earnest on the 19th of November, 1940 when a small group
of the Gladiators were attacked by the
Italians. This started the Squadron's long fight in
the Western Desert, resuming combat for the first time in 22
years. [The Squadron's
last bullet of WW1 had been fired
at an enemy aircraft by a (now long-obsolete) RE8 on the 10th of November, 1918.] This time, however, the enemy took the form
of 18 Italian Fiat CR42s, who attacked
four Gladiators carrying out a tactical reconnaissance
mission.
Italian CR42 biplane.
This example was captured
by 3 Squadron in the first Libyan advance, with the intent of
shipping it back to the AWM in Canberra, but it was lost when
Rommel counter-attacked.
No.3 Squadron lost its first WW2
air-combat casualty (Squadron Leader Peter HEATH) during the swirling dog-fight that followed, but claimed three
enemy aircraft destroyed and another three probably downed.
[Although in fact the Italians suffered no aircraft losses, only
some damage. The Italians also over-claimed six Gladiators
"shot down" and two "probables", when there had only been four
Gladiators in the fight!]
This first encounter
showed that these young 3 Squadron pilots flying
Gladiators could hold their own against a more experienced enemy
flying faster aircraft.
Gladiators were the last
and the best of the British biplane
fighters; they were descendants of
Sopwith Pups, Camels and SE5As, all of which had
been developed to perform so effectively during the closing
years of the Great War.
The little, single-seat,
all-metal biplane was robust and highly
manoeuvrable and therefore ideal for aerobatics -
which meant, in war time, that it was good
at
dodging the enemy in a dog-fight.
More importantly, it didn't have any
handling faults once it had been correctly
rigged. It was armed with four .303
machine guns ... two in the fuselage firing between the propeller
blades by means of an interrupter gear and two in blisters under the
wings. Its 840-horsepower
Mercury 8A engine propelled it at a maximum speed of 250 miles per
hour at 15,500 feet and it could climb to this height in six
minutes before reaching its ceiling at 32,800 feet. It cruised at 210 miles per hour and
could land at 59 miles per hour. In
all, an aeroplane that, whilst lacking some of the performance
qualities of the sleek, fast enemy aircraft being introduced into
the Western Desert, was still a regular little terrier that had
quite a lethal bite.
During the early days of December, the
Squadron carried out strafing and dive-bombing
attacks in the Sofafi area and continuous offensive patrols over
Sidi Barrani and Halfaya. On the
14th of December, they moved to a forward landing ground at Sidi
Barrani for nine days,
before moving to a location near Sollum, on the Egyptian
border.
Map showing the "Western
Desert" of Egypt and the Cyrenaican (Eastern) section of
Libya, as far west as Rommel's repeatedly-used
"backstop" position at El Agheila, a distance of 400
miles over largely arid territory.
Christmas and New Year meant a heavy
workload providing reconnaissance reports for the 6th Division AIF.
But there was still time to seek a
good Christmas dinner.
1940-12-22. NEAR SOLLUM. TROOPS
OF THE 2/1 FIELD COY ENGINEERS CLOSE AROUND A FALLEN
ENEMY PLANE BROUGHT DOWN BY ONE OF OUR GLADIATORS. (NEGATIVE
BY FRANK HURLEY).
1941
Between the 3rd and the 5th of
January, 1941, the battle for Bardia raged and 3 Squadron helped the
13th Corps win this first big victory of British General Archibald
Wavell’s Libyan campaign, by spotting for
the Artillery and efficiently conducting its Army co-operation
functions. Over 40,000 prisoners,
400 guns, 130 tanks and 700 motor trucks were captured during this
campaign. The now-disorganised
Italian Army was on the run, chased by the Allies, including 3 Squadron, who
moved to Gambut, about 32 miles from Tobruk, on the 8th of that
month. From there, many artillery
reconnaissances of the Tobruk defences were made,
during the build-up and the actual taking of Tobruk by the Allied
forces on the 21st of January, 1941.
On this same day, the first of the
Squadron's Hawker Hurricanes was released from a base maintenance
depot to the Squadron's new advanced landing ground at Bir Hacheim.
Flying Officer Gordon Steege (later Air Commodore,
DSO, DFC, MiD) was one of the first to fly
the Squadron's Hurricanes.
Western Desert, North Africa. c. 1941. Local
labour being used to clear desert land with
Hurricane fighter aircraft parked in the background.
[AWM 010906]
The taking of Tobruk was a milestone
in the Western Desert war because of its strategic shipping value, so it was a cause of celebration for both
infantry and airmen alike. But this
was only a temporary relief, because the
pace was quickly stepped up. The
Squadron leapfrogged from one location to the next, covering Tmimi
to Martuba while our forward troops were fighting in the
Derna-Mechili areas of Cyrenaica.
The Australian 6th
Division captured Derna on the 30th of
January 1941 and that same day the recently-promoted
Squadron C.O. (now Wing Commander)
I. D. McLachlan, received a Distinguished
Flying Cross ... the first of many decorations to be won by 3
Squadron's personnel during the war years.
By early February, a few of the long-awaited Hurricanes were operating and they
helped to boost the morale of the pilots who were still making do
with the existing outdated aircraft they were flying. Fortunately,
the Italians were now in full retreat and the Squadron, like the
infantry, had pursued them until, on the 7th of February,
the fight reached Benghazi and the enemy there surrendered. The
Squadron again moved forward, this time to Benina about 12 miles
from Benghazi.
3 Squadron Hurricane in a roofless hangar at Benina, with the wing
of a wrecked Italian plane in the background. 1941-02-26.
Sergeant M. Quinton of Windsor at propeller, Corporal R. Stephen
of Sydney at engine, Cpl. H. Thomas of Sydney at cockpit.
Aircraftman I W. H. Heiler Sydney at machine-gun ammunition
hatch. [Negative by Frank Hurley, AWM 006487]
Squadron Leader Peter Jeffrey, who had won the 1935 award
for most efficient Air Cadet, was appointed the new C.O. on
the 13th of February 1941. The Squadron operated from Benina for a
little over six
weeks and during this time met the strength of the Luftwaffe for the
first time. Flying Officer J. H. Saunders was the first in the Squadron to
shoot down a German aircraft, a Junkers JU88,
and he did it in his new Hurricane on the 15th of February.
A pre-dawn
low-level air raid on the Squadron's
aerodrome earlier that week by six JU88s had lasted
over an hour. To the cheers of all
being attacked, one of the German aircraft was brought down by
ack-ack.
BENINA, LIBYA. 1941-12-27.
A GERMAN BOMBER WHICH CRASHED BESIDE
A WRECKED HANGAR ON THE AERODROME.
[AWM 022738]
The raid highlighted a difference that
was to become more and more noticeable between the attacking styles
of the Germans and that of their Italian allies,
both during air raids and in aerial combat. Whereas
the Germans would come in at low level, the Italians generally
worked from high-level during an air raid and, in combat, they'd
dive at their target and then zoom away,
using the speed of the dive to regain lost altitude after each
firing pass. However the Germans
would come in close and, whenever possible, stay in close.
The Hurricanes
were up against a variety of enemy aircraft during the
"Desert Stakes" (as the Australian
participants called the fight in the
Egyptian Western Desert and Cyrenaica).
The main Italian fighter was the
Fiat CR42 - a 1939-designed update of the
1933 CR32 which had been used in the 1936 Spanish Civil War. The CR42 was the best of a family of
agile fighters that could fly at almost 300 miles per hour at 30,000
feet for over 450 miles. However,
the German JU88 was a better aircraft, considered by many to have
been the best light bomber the Luftwaffe had; comparable
with the later-developed RAF Mosquito. The JU88 was a more dangerous opponent
than the CR42 because it was faster and it possessed better
armaments.
The notorious JU87 Stuka dive
bombers were also active in the area. This
single-engined aircraft with its screaming
sirens (designed to terrify anyone it was
attacking on the ground) dive-bombed
very precisely. The pilot had a
window in the floor so he could spot his target and lines were
inscribed on the canopy from which he could gauge the angle of his
dive. An experienced pilot could
dive his Stuka vertically, using
air-brakes to slow the dive,
so he could very accurately aim his 500kg bomb load. (The
bomb load was restricted to this maximum because of the Stuka's poor
aerodynamic shape and its 232 mph maximum
air speed. It was this slow speed
that helped 3 Squadron bring down eight
of the 12 Stukas they surprised on the 18th of February 1941,
near Agedabia.)
Another
of the German aircraft operating in the Western Desert was the Messerschmitt
Bf110, with its twin 1,270
horsepower Daimler Benz liquid-cooled and
inverted V12 engines. As a
long-range fighter, its two 20mm cannon and four 7.9mm machine guns
built into the nose, together with the
single 7.9mm machine gun operated by the observer, made it a
formidable opponent, capable of flying at
a maximum 349 miles per hour, which was almost as fast as Britain’s
fastest fighter, the Spitfire.
It was certainly faster than the 310 mph that the Hurricane was
propelled at by its 1,030-horsepower
Rolls-Royce Merlin II V12-engine.
(Although its hand-operated
booster allowed the Hurricane to fly at
maximum engine power and higher speed but only for about a minute
without seizing the engine). As a fighter,
the strongly constructed, metal-framed
Hurricane was excellent. It could
out-climb even the Spitfire, zooming 1,500
feet upwards in well under a minute. It
had a service ceiling of 34,000 feet and
a 460 mile range. Armament
comprised eight adjustable .303 Browning
machine guns, which could converge 200
bullets a second into a target. (The guns
were usually set for their fire to converge at a 250-yard range.)
The very first Hurricanes were
manufactured in 1935 and they were used in the Battle of Britain
with great success,
so thankfully they were already proven performers well before 3
Squadron began using them for attacks and patrols
during that triumphant February/March 1941 period
(when the Allied armies had the enemy well and truly on the
run). Had
the Squadron not been equipped with reliable and fast fighters
during the terrible months that were to follow, the Squadron's
personnel losses would undoubtedly have been enormous. As
it was, the fighting was to be fierce;
unparalleled to anything the Squadron had experienced up
to that time.
Enter
Rommel...
Rommel holds a staff meeting.
[Left to right] Oberst Leutnant Fritz BAYERLEIN; Oberst
Leutnant Fredrick-Wilhelm VON MELLENTHIN, Rommel’s chief
intelligence officer; General ROMMEL; and General Leutnant Walter
NEHRING.
[Thanks to Alby Anderson in NZ for help with this image and caption.]
By the last
days of March 1941, everything started to go wrong for the Allied
forces in Cyrenaica and historians
attribute this to three events.
The first was the decision by the Allied Chiefs of Staff to
withdraw 47,000 troops from what seemed (to
them) to be a now-secured area, to fight
in Greece. The second was an
incorrect assumption, by General Wavell’s
Intelligence Staff, that the enemy weren't
in a position to mount any counter-attack
or offensive in Cyrenaica before the middle of April,
or even May. But the third element
was probably the most critical - this had occurred on February the 15th when Hitler
approved Field-Marshal von Brauchitsch's choice of a General to command the German troops in Libya.
Von Brauchitsch's selected man was already a hero of the
German people and was unquestionably a genius in planning and
effecting battle tactics.
Interestingly, this 50-year-old General, named
Erwin Rommel, had been decorated several
times during the First War,
consistently demonstrating his brave, untiring and decisive
leadership beginning as a 24-year-old Leutnant. Before
the First War was over, he'd won the Pour le Merite (which
is the equivalent of the British Victoria Cross) and attained the
rank of Hauptmann (or Captain). He
remained a professional soldier after that war and, like most
professional soldiers in the armies of both sides, didn’t belong to
any political party. During his
entire career, he studiously avoided the
Nazi element in Germany.
On the 31st of March 1941, within two
weeks of arriving in Africa with his specially-trained
desert armoured division known as the Afrika Korps, Rommel
launched a surprise attack on the Allied positions at El Agheila, ignoring advice from the German General
Staff to refrain from making any attack.
At that time, 3 Squadron were still
flying patrols from Benina, but when the (now) thin line of
Allied troops could no longer hold against Rommel's fresh new
forces, they withdrew to Got El Sultan. It
was only a few hours before they were ordered to withdraw further
back to Martuba. Aerial combat was
hectic during the next weeks while the Squadron was protecting the
retreating Allied army from heavy German air attack. Almost
every day in early April, the ground crew was moving back by road
while the Squadron's pilots were busy shooting down Stukas,
which were continuously striking at the British
ground forces in retreat.
On
a single day, they brought down ten Stukas without loss to the
Squadron. Unfortunately, twelve of
the ground crew (among the last to leave Martuba when the Squadron
was forced further back to Gazala East) were captured
by the rapidly advancing enemy and some
others were wounded - one fatally - by
strafing Me110s.
3 Squadron flew missions constantly to
provide air cover for the hard-pressed British forces,
but sometimes the Hurricanes couldn't return to the airfield they'd
left because the Squadron had retreated to another location while
they were flying. Some moves were
carried out during dust-storms, others at night.
Each move meant tremendous effort and
danger for the ground crew, often under
enemy fire. Besides the personnel
casualties, many transport vehicles were damaged.
Anything that couldn't be packed and
moved, or was still unserviceable at the time of departure,
had to be destroyed. At one stage
48,000 rounds of .303 ammunition had to be sacrificed and only the
skill of pilots like Pete Turnbull (who
took off in a Hurricane with a bullet-holed tyre,
stuffed with blankets and grass to harden it)
saved valuable aeroplanes from being destroyed and abandoned.
The Squadron's personnel were
outstanding during those unfortunate days and nights,
which were spent fighting off the enemy whilst being forced to stay
on the run. However they still
managed to keep the Hurricanes flying in spite of many close shaves; fighting themselves out of so many tight
corners that the AIF nicknamed them "The
Phantom Squadron".
They
actually occupied seven different airfields during six days in early April,
before they settled at Sidi Heneish, which
was about 50 miles inside the Egyptian border and within
flying distance from the first airfields they had occupied
nine months earlier, when they had
started their 400-odd mile
advance to the Benghazi area.
During those first weeks of April
1941, Rommel's Afrika Korps had driven most of the Allied forces
right out of Cyrenaica back into Egypt,
with the exception of the English and Australian forces left
isolated in Tobruk. The Australian
9th Division and the remnants of a British armoured
division had retreated there, forming a
23,000-strong garrison -
but it was completely cut off from the rest of Wavell's army.
By then,
General Wavell had realised he was no
longer fighting a mediocre Italian army controlled by their
chicken-hearted commander, General Graziani. He
was fighting a determined and fresh new force,
whose commander was dedicated to conquering the Mediterranean area, so that Germany
could control the Suez Canal, Gibraltar and the seaports of Northern
Africa.
On the 6th of April, General Wavell
stopped the 7th Australian Division from embarking for Greece, and
ordered them to sail for Tobruk instead. On
the following day, he ordered the British 7th
Armoured Division in Egypt to re-assemble. But
these urgent new measures couldn't help the British forces who had
already been driven back to Derna.
Meanwhile, Tobruk was
fighting off the Axis assault and needed all the air support they
could get, so on the 16th, four of 3
Squadron's Hurricanes landed inside the Tobruk perimeter and
remained there to assist the besieged Australian troops defending
the garrison.
TOBRUK, LIBYA. 1941. A HURRICANE FIGHTER AIRCRAFT
BEING TAKEN OUT OF ONE OF THE
SECRET HANGARS ON THE EDGE OF EL GUBBI AERODROME. THE
HANGARS WERE
CONSTRUCTED BY ENGINEERS OF THE 9TH AUSTRALIAN DIVISION, AIF.
[AWM 020689]
About that time, I
Gruppe of the German Jagdgeschwader
27, consisting of 3 Staffels of ex-Battle of Britain
pilots, arrived at Am el Gazala with their single-seater
Messerschmitt
Bf 109E fighters.
One of those pilots was Oberfahnrich
Hans-Joachim Marseille,
a young man destined to become one of Germany's top fighter pilots. Many 3 Squadron pilots were to fight
against him and his Gruppe during the next 17
months. He was later to claim over
150 victories in total.
Bf109Es over the Desert.
The Bf109E's,
arriving in steady numbers, were considered superior to the
Hurricanes in speed, rate of climb and armament.
Their engines had fuel injection pumps instead of
carburettors and therefore didn't cut out in 'negative-g'
manoeuvres during critical moments of combat. But
the limited range of the 109s was a disadvantage in the desert. Their glycol radiator and oil coolers
were vulnerable to attack from beneath, so
these became a favourite aiming-area
for 3 Squadron pilots. Nevertheless,
their Daimler-Benz inverted V12 engines gave them a 360 mph
speed at 20,000 feet - at least 50 mph faster than the Hurricane.
This was one of many reasons that influenced the Allied
Command to recall 3 Squadron to Aqir, in Palestine on the 3rd of May
for re-training and re-equipping with the relatively new
American-produced Curtiss P40B, called the Tomahawk.
P-40
Tomahawk
Powered by a 1,150-horsepower
Allison engine, the Tomahawk's speed and performance was closer to
that of the 109. Its two 0.5
inch Browning machine guns mounted above the engine,
plus four wing-mounted .30s, gave the
Squadron a better chance of matching the enemy's firepower.
It was a fairly manoeuverable
machine which performed well at low altitudes and eventually suited
the Desert aerial warfare conditions quite well,
after some early
teething problems were overcome.
"Tomahawk" by Harold Herbet,
1941. Depicts a Curtiss P-40B
Tomahawk fighter in the foreground with two British airplanes in the
middle distance
at Rosh Pinna, Palestine (now in Israel). The
Syrian Campaign involved Australian troops, mostly from the 7th
Division, fighting alongside
allied troops against the Vichy French in Syria and Lebanon. The artist wrote: "...No
3 Squadron RAAF - advanced aerodrome at
Rosh Pinna ...the aerodrome is
surrounded by eucalyptus saplings among which the personnel of the
camp live under canvas. Arid
hills are the setting."
According to Jewish Kabbalah tradition, this is the location where
the Messiah will appear at the end of the world.
[AWM copyright ART30054]
By the 8th of June 1941, 3 Squadron
were ready to fly again, boosted by a brief few days of leave in
Aboukir, along with their new brand-new
aircraft and a couple of pieces of good
news; a DFC had been awarded
to the C.O., Squadron Leader Pete Jeffrey for,
"courage, determination and devotion to duty" and Germany's
45,000 ton battleship, the "Bismarck", had been sunk 12 days
before. [After having previously destroyed
the mighty Hood.]
Their operations re-commenced in
Syria against the Vichy French Armee de l
'Air who flew older Morane fighters, some Glenn Martin bombers
and the more popular Dewoitine D520 fighters,
painted with the Vichy symbol which had a similarity to the British
markings. The Dewoitines
were small and lightly-powered and
somewhat under-armed,
with only a single 20mm cannon firing through the propeller hub and
four light machine guns in the wings. No.3
Squadron's Tomahawks, flying from their temporary airfield at Jenin,
brought down many of these nimble little French fighters during
their patrols and during
escort missions for Blenheim light bombers attacking
enemy convoys on the Damascus-Beirut road.
3 Squadron's Jim Kinnear, after
they had occupied Rayak airbase in Syria, standing with one of the
French D520
fighters destroyed in 3 Squadron's earlier strafing
attacks. [Jim
Kinnear Collection]
After the Blenheims dropped their
bombs, the Tomahawk pilots guided them out of the area before
returning to strafe the road, which the
French called "Nightmare Road" because of the intense, heavy low-flying strikes the Squadron made. By
the 12th of July, the Vichy forces fighting in Syria had quit and
their signing of a truce marked the end of the Squadron’s Syrian
campaign, almost one year to the day since leaving Australia. The campaign had given the Squadron's
pilots the opportunity of strengthening their teamwork while they
were collectively destroying or damaging 31 enemy aircraft in that
five-week period.
Experienced pilots like Jeffrey, Turnbull, Jackson, Rawlinson, Perrin, Saunders, Bothwell,
Wilson and
Fischer all
worked together to achieve these scores but, at the same time, they
were initiating into aerial combat, newly-arrived
pilots like Flying Officer Bobby Gibbes, a 5 foot 4 inch, 25-year-old ex-salesman who'd joined the Squadron on
the 14th of May 1941. He’d already
brought down his first enemy aeroplane and was destined to become
one of the most popular top-scoring Australian pilots in the two
years that he served
with 3 Squadron; the Squadron that he was
eventually to command during two of its
most active
periods.
1941-06-06. LYDDA. GROUP OF AUSTRALIAN FIGHTER PILOTS OF NO 3
SQUADRON WITH ONE OF THE NEW AMERICAN FIGHTER PLANES
(TOMAHAWK) WITH WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN EQUIPPED IN READINESS FOR THE
SYRIAN CAMPAIGN. THEY ARE,
(L to R), SQUADRON LEADER PETER JEFFREY
DFC; FLT. LT. JOCK PERRIN DFC; FT. LT. ALAN RAWLINSON; P/O PETER
TURNBULL AND P/O JACKMEN.
[AWM 008198, NEGATIVE BY DAMIEN PARER.]
On the 20th of July, the Squadron
moved to Rayak and spent the next seven
weeks flying defence patrols in the (now
Allied-held) Beirut area.
These lighter duties gave an opportunity for many of the
personnel to take leave. Then, in
early September, orders came through to move back to the old base at
Sidi Heneish, to rejoin the desperate
battle still raging in Egypt and Cyrenacia between Rommel's forces
and Wavell's combined armies.
From the 13th of September until early
November 1941, the Squadron used its twelve Tomahawks to patrol the
Sidi Barrani - Mersa Matruh area and along the coast line as far as
Tobruk. On one occasion, during a
heavy dust-storm, one Tomahawk exploded
when Flying Officer Stratten slammed into an unmanned aircraft that
an RAF pilot had stupidly left on the edge of the strip. Stratten's
life was saved by Corporal Whittington who soaked himself in
fire-fighting foam and dragged the unconscious pilot from the
flames. For this heroic act,
Whittington was awarded the British Empire Medal.
4 March 1942. Head
and shoulders portrait of Flight Sergeant Richard (Dick)
Whittington, Fitter 2A, No 3 Sqdn RAAF,
by Sir William Dargie. [AWM copyright ART28399]
Replacement aircraft and newly-posted
pilots were arriving, some of whom were Sergeant Pilots.
In an unprecedented idea
initiated by the C.O., Peter Jeffrey, the
Sergeants were invited to merge their Sergeants' Mess with
the Officers' Mess, so that
all pilots, regardless of rank, could share a common, fraternal
environment. Before long, most
other Desert Air Force Squadrons followed 3 Squadron's lead,
to the betterment of pilot morale generally.
Of course the pace of the fighting
with constant moving from place to place meant protective cover
wasn’t always readily available for simple day-to-day activities.
Many of
these had to be carried out in the open,
including church services which were held on a regular basis by the
Desert Air Force Chaplains.
The Squadron was blessed with the
spiritual guidance from three most remarkable men: Bob Davies,
an Anglican who, years after the war, eventually became Bishop of
Hobart; Fred McKay, Presbyterian (but
later prominent in the Uniting Church),
who was to become John Flynn’s successor at
that marvellous Australian institution, The Australian Inland
Mission’s Flying
Doctor Service; and Johnny
McNamara, a hard-working Catholic priest form Melbourne.
Known amusingly
to all as "The
Terrible Three", these unselfish men were an
invaluable contribution to the smooth operation of the Squadron. Not only did they spread calmness that
rubbed off on everyone, they became confidants to the men and the friendships
that they made lasted lifetimes, well
beyond the war years.
Worthy of note is how these three men blended together to blaze their spiritual
trail through the unforgiving North African desert where men often
made their temporary homes out of sand and sandbags and sometimes
even out of old empty kerosene tins to shield themselves from both
extreme weather conditions as well as enemy attacks.
In the early stages of the war they’d
quickly made a decision together that,
rather than each ministering only to those of their own religion,
each would (as they criss-crossed the
gigantic desert in their roles of itinerant padres)
minister to anyone in need, regardless of
the religion of the particular person.
They decided to split up the entire
desert area into three sections and, with a driver and a truck each,
deliver a common Christianity to everyone
in each area without worrying about the finer points of which
religion believed what doctrines. They’d
interchange areas on a roster basis so that,
over time, each RAAF serviceman would
eventually meet a pastor from his own church. The
system
was an outstanding success and was responsible for both an
interchange and understanding between men of all faiths.
In early November 1941, 3 Squadron and
112 Squadron, RAF, were paired up to form No.2
Wing, with Peter Jeffrey appointed
as Acting Wing Commander and newly-promoted
Acting Squadron Leader, Alan Rawlinson the
replacement C.O. for 3 Squadron.
Peter Jeffery
congratulates Al Rawlinson, handing over the Squadron.
Their first move westward was to
Madelena and air combat in this new campaign commenced in mid-November,
1941. The fighting was intense and
November 22nd became a "black day"
in the Squadron's history, when five
pilots were killed and two taken prisoner after their Tomahawks had
been shot down over the Bir Gobi and Bir Hacheim regions.
There had been several combats that
day against Messerschmitt Bf109Fs, which were a much faster and
slicker update of the older 109Es and, in some of these dog-fights,
there were up to four 109F's to a single Tomahawk,
with one particular combat lasting for a record one hour and five
minutes. Only dusk forced the enemy
to withdraw, leaving the weary 3 Squadron
pilots to limp home with landing lights on, some force-landing short
of the strip and others running out of petrol while taxiing
in.
However, the score wasn't all the
enemy's way, as six of their 109Fs were
damaged, two destroyed and two probably destroyed.
By the end of November, however, the
Squadron had taken their revenge for their losses by claiming
39 enemy aircraft destroying
or damaged in just a few flying days. This
brought the Squadron's total of enemy aircraft destroyed to
106.
That was good reason for a celebration
but, due to shortages of supplies reaching their forward position,
only a few bottles
of whiskey could be found!
But
it was nevertheless a celebration that every other squadron in the
Desert Air Force heard about, because 3
Squadron had become the first of the Desert squadrons to destroy 100
enemy aircraft and the third or fourth Empire
Squadron to reach their "century" in the entire war.
And, in spite of that black day two weeks earlier, they had
lost only 16 Tomahawks during the preceding three months.
During the time that
the Squadron had been fighting in the Syrian campaign, the
Afrika Korps had maintained a
continuous siege against
isolated Tobruk. In the Allied "Crusader"
attack to relieve Tobruk, supremacy of
the air was contested between 19 Allied
Squadrons, each made up of twelve
aeroplanes (mainly Hurricanes or Tomahawks
and a few Beaufighters) against a combined
force of 19 Italian Squadriglie, each flying a mixture of nine MC 200s
and MC 202s, plus a force of nine German Staffeln
each operating nine Bf 109Es or Fs plus
some Bf 110s and Ju88s flying as well. In
all, 228 Allied aircraft were fighting 258 Axis aeroplanes on
the last day of November 1941.
On that same day, a 109 flown by
Oberfeldwebel Otto Schulz, attached to Staffel 2, JG27, crippled
Sergeant "Tiny"
Cameron's Tomahawk and this forced him to land behind enemy
lines. Within minutes, Pete
Jeffrey had followed him down, picked him up and had
taken off for home, sitting on
the lap of the 6 foot 3 inch "Tiny". This unselfish, heroic and no doubt
uncomfortable act helped the Wing Commander win yet another
decoration, the Distinguished Service Order.
Incidentally, Tiny Cameron was the
'parent' of a very cute little monkey which he'd named "Buzz", who had quickly become the Squadron's
beloved mascot when Tiny brought him back
to the Squadron after a leave in Cairo. Buzz
often (but unofficially!)
flew with Tiny in his aircraft on non-operational flights.
Early December
1941; 3 Squadron had the honour of being the first in the
Desert Air Force to be re-equipped with the new Curtis P40E
Kittyhawk IA. Although
they didn't fly that much faster than the Tomahawks, the lethal
density of their six wing-mounted 0.5-inch
machine guns certainly beat the Tomahawks' firepower.
Like the Tomahawks, their robust
construction was able to withstand a terrific amount of combat
punishment and this factor alone made them ideal aeroplanes for
Desert warfare, particularly with
experienced ground crews that could continue an already
extraordinary record of maintaining and modifying the Squadron's
aircraft to minimise the heavy engine and mechanical wear that the
harsh desert conditions caused.
(Left) "Taking off (Antelat, Libya Jan.1942)" and (Right)
"Changing Engines, 3
Squadron" paintings by Frank Norton. [AWM Copyright ART29361 and ART21006.]
Dust and sand, of course, were
ever-present trouble-makers often responsible for destroying engines
even after relatively short use. In
the air, the Kittyhawk Mark I (P40D/P40E)
could cope well with most of the enemy aircraft they met,
but their heaviness stopped them from being as fast in speed or
climb as the Messerschmitt 109F-2s which were then appearing in the
desert skies in increasing numbers. They
could at least turn inside these Messerschmitts
in combat, but generally only the more
experienced Allied pilots could stay on
top of the deadly 109F-2s.
December 1941 was also the month that Japan blasted
the U.S.A. into the war. The Japanese made a surprise attack
on the 94 ships moored at the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbour at 7.55
am on Sunday the 7th of December, using 360 aircraft, with fighter
cover, from six carriers. By 10am the
battle was over and seven of the eight U.S. battleships had either
been sunk or damaged. Over 2,000
Americans were killed and almost another 2,000 wounded.
In the Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur
commanded the U.S. forces, further attacks by the Japanese Navy and
Air Force also began at sunrise (the date
was the 8th of December across the International Dateline).
Japanese forces made co-ordinated invasion landings in the Philippines
and Malaya. By the 20th of December, the remains of MacArthur’s
Philippine USAAF squadrons had withdrawn to Darwin, Australia.
Disaster followed
disaster for the Allies. Whilst Britain’s capital ships, the
battleship Prince of Wales, and the battle-cruiser Repulse
(which had accompanied HMS Hood to Australia in 1923) were
steaming to attack the invaders in Northern Malaya, they were sunk by
Japanese torpedo-bombers. Nearly 1,000 lives were lost.
The strength and the obvious intentions of this new enemy caused
Churchill to take prompt steps to, "reinforce Malaya with aircraft
from Middle East," which thus helped to weaken the air forces fighting
concurrently in Libya.
By then, many of No.3 Squadron's pilots were
battle-seasoned, but there were always new arrivals, like Australian
Rugby Union International, Flying Officer Nicky
Barr, destined to eventually destroy more enemy aircraft
than any other pilot in the Squadron and to lead it
through desperate circumstances. He started his unique
record just a few days after joining the Squadron when he brought down
a Messerschmitt 110. On the very next
day he followed up with a second 110 and a Ju88.
With the third Christmas approaching since the start
of the war, the outlook for the Allies didn't look good at all - in
England and Europe, the Middle East and now
the Far Eastern theatres of war.
But there did appear to be one bright possibility
which could help the Desert War...
Lodged 550 miles deep in Soviet territory, three
separate German Army Groups had been quite successfully executing
Hitler's "Operation Barbarossa", since the 22nd of June, attacking
Russia’s huge armies (who since 1939 had been the Germans'
allies). General von Bock’s Wehrmacht divisions had slowly been
approaching Moscow since mid-October (following
the footsteps, and eventually the mistakes, of Napoleon in 1812)
and had already conquered many of the Russian cities on a 1,500-mile
front, from the Baltic
to the Black Sea, as they advanced
eastward, capturing, killing and wounding an estimated six million
inadequately-prepared Russians
(for a preliminary loss of three-quarters of a million German troops).
However, the ruthless, freezing winter,
which had just started, promised relief for the Russians and, it
seemed, doom for the mostly summer-clad German troops
- gradually being entrapped without any regular supplies or a
chance to retreat. The Russians themselves remained
tough and patriotic, despite their
mounting losses.
While ever that situation continued,
it had the effect of diverting Germany’s supplies away from the
Middle East and, consequently, was giving the Allied forces time to
regroup and re-equip, particularly now that the
Americans were manufacturing more and more aircraft, a lot of which
were gradually finding their way to North Africa.
By Christmas Day 1941 in North
Africa, the Squadron had split into two groups,
with the main base stationed at Gazala and an advance party in Msus.
Happily, pre-Christmas dinners were real morale-boosters, after the cooks at the main base shot a
giant wild boar near an airfield at El Adem,
which the Squadron had just vacated. Roasted
and garnished with German canned sauerkraut and Italian green peas,
they served it with captured Italian Chianti, while, in Msus, the
advance party cooked up 24 plump roosters
"found" in a
crate that had "obviously"
been dislodged from a passing truck on the Tmimi road...
So, in all, the Squadron ate well
that Christmas...
...and finished 1941 united again in
Msus, with Squadron Leader 'Dixie' Chapman
as their new C.O.
1942
The early weeks of January 1942 saw a grand start for the year,
with 12 enemy aircraft being shot down,
another seven probably destroyed and six more damaged in the first
eight days. Nicky Barr's personal
score continued to rise and on the 11th he shot down a G50 and two
Me109F's before his Kittyhawk was hit and crash-landed
behind enemy lines. Disregarding a
wounded leg, he spent the next three days
disguised as a desert
nomad and riding a camel past German motorised units, all the while going out of his way to get
vital information about enemy disposition whilst he was limping back
to base. After he'd reported his
observations, he was immediately awarded the D.F.C. for his
incredible feat and his Intelligence contributions.
By mid-January,
the weather had turned sour, making flying and even living difficult
with camp and runways flooded by heavy rain and blinded by
piercing sandstorms.
Rommel had commenced a strong counter-attack by January
23rd and the Squadron's advance party,
which had moved to Belandah to set up a refuelling and servicing
airfield, was almost caught when they
awoke to find a semi-circle of Panzer tanks firing at them from only
300 yards
away. Corporal Lee, the NCO in charge of the party, ran to a
truck 50 yards away, hurriedly started it and
raced south, collecting his men on the way, as the Panzer's 75mm guns blew up
a nearby petrol tanker. Ground
fog then hid the
escaping truck and by jettisoning everything not screwed
down, to gain speed, they
survived.
Within
the next month, 3 Squadron and another Kittyhawk RAAF Squadron, No.450 (these two Aussie
squadrons were to share
many outstanding moments,
right up until the end of the war) retreated further
eastwards to Gambut and continued to fly
aggressive fighting patrols in conjunction with No.112
"Shark" Squadron, RAF, giving the enemy a constant hammering,
but not without their own losses. Leutnant
Hans-Joachim Marseille brought down two of 3 Squadron's Kittyhawks
on the 15th of February, killing Sergeant
Reid. (Who
had, the day before, destroyed 1½
aircraft and damaged another, a fair contribution to the Squadron's
day-total of 8½
destroyed and six damaged.)
Bobby Gibbes, promoted to Squadron
Leader, became C.O. on the 26th of February 1942 and arranged the
Squadron's first escort assignment for some recently-arrived
Douglas Boston light bombers,
which commenced bombing the enemy at Martuba on March the
14th.
February 1942 was also the month
that, back home in Australia, Darwin suffered its first air attack
when on the 19th, 242
Japanese aircraft bombed this far northern shipping port,
sinking ten ships and damaging two dozen others, shooting down an
American fighter squadron, smashing the town and inflicting
300 deaths.
By the time No.3
Squadron was given 14 days'
stand-down, effective from the 25th of
March, they'd claimed 68½ enemy aircraft destroyed,
59 damaged and been credited with 16 probables
in a little over six months
- their "2nd Libyan Campaign".
Many of the Squadron's personnel
spent their leave on the nearby coastal beaches and they enjoyed
relaxing in different ways. Swimming
was a popular way to brush away the cobwebs of war and so too was
fishing; with some of the swimmers using
a very scientific way of catching fish, evolved no doubt in
consultation with the armourers. They
simply threw hand-grenades into the water
and then scooped up the dead fish!
On the 7th of April, the Squadron began three weeks of intensive training to
prepare for a new campaign in which they'd been ear-marked to fly
their Kittyhawks as fighter-bombers. This meant learning the
techniques of dive-bombing - to counter
the ever-increasing numbers of enemy in
the desert who were already experts at dive-bombing.
Although the Luftwaffe's total air
strength had been seriously diluted by their involvement on
too many operational fronts at the same time, it didn't help the
Allied situation in North Africa when Marshal Herman Göring took the
risk of withdrawing much-needed aeroplanes
from the Russian front to double his force fighting in the
Mediterranean areas. As well, an
increase in enemy shipping activity, which
had been suffering heavy losses from both air and sea attack,
heralded Rommel’s major new attack, soon to become
known as the 'Battle of Gazala'.
The massed clashes of armour of the
Gazala battles and the brave resistance of the Free French on the
Allied flank at Bir Hachiem were
not enough to stop Rommel, nick-named "The Desert Fox".
The Allies tried to bottle-up Rommel's panzers in "The Cauldron"
and
reduce them by aerial attack, but he was able to re-supply his
forces and break out. His attack outflanked the
expensively-constructed
Allied Gazala Line and resulted in a steady Allied retreat all the
way back to El Alamein in Egypt, under the cover of an
RAF aerial umbrella. 3 Squadron was intensively involved in
all of this action.
Rommel
commenced it on the night of the 25th of May 1942 with intensive
night bombing and strafing of the Allied forward landing grounds. His objective was to take Tobruk,
consolidate at the Egyptian frontier (while
Malta was invaded), then
over-run Egypt, reach Cairo, and capture the Suez Canal.
Rommel likened desert warfare to sea
battles, where there were no trenches, no front line;
just a sea of open desert,
upon which both (ever-mobile)
sides sought to destroy the troops and equipment of the other.
Only the capture of a worthwhile strategic target decided a
winner. His land-assault started in
earnest the next morning. With four
Italian Divisions, plus the crack German 15th
and 21st Panzers and 90th Light Divisions, he attacked the Allied
line from Gazala south to Bir Hacheim and so commenced one of the
most difficult engagements the Squadron ever encountered. During
the next weeks, every pilot flew at least two,
and sometimes up to six, sorties per
day from their Gambut airfield (itself regularly
bombed by the Luftwaffe). No.3's duties mainly involved bombing and
strafing the advancing enemy tanks, troops and every close Luftwaffe
airfield.
Nicky Barr became C.O., on the 28th
of May, replacing a hospitalised Bobby Gibbes who'd broken his leg
and ankle after he'd bailed out from his blazing Kittyhawk. One
unique blessing that Gibby had organised before his hospitalisation
was the setting-up of a camp eight miles away on the Mediterranean
coast, where pilots who were not rostered for flying until the next
morning, could sleep at the beach camp after a cooling swim in the
Med, followed by a meat and veggie stew served by an attending cook,
and, when available, a bottle of beer sent up from Alexandria. This god-sent camp rejuvenated the
weary-eyed, dusty and grim airmen returning from operations; and
without doubt helped pilots avoid fatigue-induced flying errors common to many of the
over-stressed Desert Air Force pilots.
A portrait by William Dargie of
Squadron Leader Nicky Barr in 1942,
dozing in the
desert sun in his flying gear, between missions. ["Nicky" by Sir William
Dargie. AWM
Copyright ART27514]
On one occasion No.3 Squadron mistakenly attacked an Indian Army
unit, in the dust and confusion of the desert retreat,
and Nicky then landed beside them to apologise.
By June the 17th, Rommel’s forces had
knocked out 230 Allied tanks and caused the Allied forces,
including the entire 239 Wing (which was
then made up of No.3 and 450 RAAF
Squadrons and RAF No.112, 250 and 260
Squadrons) to retreat.
The entire Wing had to leap-frog
through five landing grounds eastward to Amiriya from their Gambut
base, returningonce again almost to the
Squadron's first landing point in North Africa eighteen months
earlier.
Not all pilots could fly back; that
day Sergeant John Hobson Hooke was seen to go down near El Adem and
the worst was expected, but "Hookie"
turned up later on foot after a long walk.
Sergeant "Donc"
Bray also went down on that day and
belly-landed in what turned out to be a minefield. As
his Kitty skidded to a halt, he heard a loud explosion and when he
looked around, he found that a mine had exploded and blown the tail
off the aircraft.
Retreat provided one good moment for
both 3 and 450 Squadrons when, at Sidi Omar, a departing Army Supply
Unit, who
couldn't move out their food and beer stocks fast enough, turned a
blind eye to a party of scroungers from both squadrons who just
happened to be passing by with a few "suddenly-empty" trucks on their journey back east,
making the Squadron's arrival at Amirya considerably happier.
The Australian 9th
Division and their British comrades had successfully held
Tobruk in 1941, but a
hastily-organised garrison of
South African Army troops were now rapidly
compelled to surrender when Rommel stormed Tobruk with his superior
Panzer Divisions, on the 21st of June, 1942.
The news of Tobruk's fall spread despondency throughout
every Allied nation. By this time,
the Afrika Korps had driven the Desert Air Force further
east, to airfields that were out of flying
range of Tobruk, so air cover for
the last desperate days of the Tobruk
battle became impossible.
Once Tobruk had
fallen, Rommel immediately decided to press on eastward
without waiting for the planned Axis
invasion of Malta. (Which, fortunately, never occurred. Had Malta fallen too,
the outcome of the Mediterranean campaign would have been
vastly different, because Malta
later proved to be the key to Allied
control of the entire Central Mediterranean zone.)
Convoy through Sollum, 1942, by
NZ artist Peter McIntyre.
However, by the 26th of June
1942, the Allies had rallied and pressed Rommel back a
little, enabling both 450 and 3 Squadrons to advance to Sidi Haneish
and allowing the Army more
time to construct their
defence line at El Alamein. This was
also the day that the C.O., Squadron Leader Nicky Barr, DFC, had to parachute from
4,000 feet, escaping his burning
Kittyhawk but landing in enemy hands, to become a Prisoner of War.
When he went down, he was flying his 84th sortie,
with 119 operational hours since he had
joined the Squadron as a junior Flying Officer six months
earlier. During this time he'd claimed a record 12 enemy aircraft
destroyed, making him 3 Squadron's top ace.
In September 1943, after
three unsuccessful escape attempts (including one that got him all
the way to the Swiss border wire) Nicky
eventually escaped from a POW train and
linked up with Special Forces and Partisans in Northern
Italy. He was subsequently awarded a Military Cross
for his assistance to Allied escapees behind the
German lines and participation in partisan attacks.
After Nicky
Barr was lost, Squadron Leader Bobby
Gibbes, with his broken leg still encased in plaster, immediately
resumed command of 3 Squadron. However,
at 2100 hours that same night, the Squadron started yet another
retreat from the (once again)
advancing enemy forces. No.3 reached the
safety of Amiyra, behind
the El Alamein Line, two days
later.
From there, 3 Squadron, with the
other 239 Wing squadrons, concentrated on supporting the
Eighth Army, including Australia's
9th Division, who had arrived from Syria. Rommel, now a Field Marshal, faced
them with his aggressive tanks of the
15th and 21st Panzer Divisions
and air protection by German Bf109s from II
Gruppe, Jagdgeschwader 27 and
III Gruppe, Jagdgescwader 27 and Italian MC202s from 4
Stormo.
The German assault
was strong and, for a while, the outcome didn't look good for the
Allies. The Italians felt so
confident of victory that their still-powerful dictator, Benito
Mussolini, actually travelled to Derna in eager anticipation of a
triumphal Italian march into Cairo after the British forces had been
over-run. (Mussolini soon found out
that this wasn't to be!) For the
next few critical weeks, the fight to hold off the enemy advance on
El Alamein became a trying touch-and-go time for all Allied forces
and particularly for 3 Squadron. They flew
their Kittyhawks on continuous operations escorting Boston light
bombers from the South African Air Force's No.12
and 24 Squadrons and Baltimores from No.223
and
55 RAF Squadrons, to their targets (on Rommel's
front-line, also his supporting airfields and supply routes).
After the bombers had dropped their
loads, the Kittyhawks would then dive-bomb and strafe the targets
before escorting their charges home.
On the 22nd July, 1942, after drawing
lots for the honour of being the pilot to drop No.3
squadron's 1,000th bomb since the German
Gazala offensive started, Sergeant Keith
Kildey dropped it with exact precision onto an enemy truck. By so doing,
he established 3 Squadron as the Middle East Kittyhawk
squadron with the highest
bomb-tally during the nine-week
campaign. This bomb went down at the
crescendo of the "First Battle of Alamein", which effectively
stopped Rommel.
During the
preceding nine weeks, Tobruk had fallen and the entire
Desert Air Force had been forced back almost 400 miles.
The amount of sheer back-breaking work and organisation
involved in retreating was enormous for, by now, there were at least
28 RAF Squadrons, seven South African
Squadrons and the two RAAF Squadrons, 3 and 450, operating a very
diverse range of aircraft from a variety of makeshift landing
grounds. Seven of these squadrons
flew Kittyhawks, eleven Hurricanes, three had newly-arrived
Spitfires, one flew Beaufighters and another Tomahawks, whilst to
bomb enemy positions there were five Halifax night-bomber
squadrons, four Wellington bomber squadrons, plus two squadrons of
Bostons and two more flying Baltimores with another couple of
squadrons making do with a mixture of aircraft, including some Fleet
Air Arm Albacores and Martlets.
Against the
Allied "Desert Air Force",
the Luftwaffe flew the equivalent of about ten fighter
squadrons of Bf109F with some Bf109G, plus Bf110s and about the same number of
Stuka Ju87 dive bombing squadrons, plus
the equivalent of another seven or eight squadrons made up of Ju88
fighter-bombers, He111 bombers, and Ju52 transports
with some transport gliders.
The Italian airforce added the equal
of at least another ten squadrons of mainly Macchi MC202s,
with some CR42 and Ju87 Squadriglia actively operating as
well. In total, the number of
squadrons on each side seemed to be quite evenly matched at this
stage.
These were the opposing air forces
which would be supporting their respective ground forces in a fight
that would go down in history as being the great decisive battle of
the African campaign, the outcome of which was to be a significant
turning point of the entire war. It
was to be become known as the 2nd Battle
of El Alamein.
The build-up of forces at
Alamein continued with Rommel lamenting his long and vulnerable
supply-chain, stretching all the way through Tobruk and across the
Mediterranean. Despite General
Claude Auchinleck's recent success in the First
Battle of Alamein [where Allied code-breaking had played a crucial
but secret part], his earlier Western Desert retreat had suffered
some disorganisation and his counter-attack against Rommel had run
out of momentum. As a consequence, "Auch"
fell from favour and was replaced as
Commander-in-Chief Middle East Forces.
Effective from the 15th of August,
1942, the British War Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Winston
Churchill (who was far from happy
with the way things were generally developing in
mid-1942) appointed General Sir Harold Alexander as the new
Commander of the Middle East Forces.
Earlier in August,
on the 7th, the very experienced Lieutenant-General "Strafer" Gott had been appointed to
command the British Eighth Army. However, in one of those
twists of fate that air-power can produce, he was killed on his way to take up his new position.
A Bombay
transport aircraft, in which Gott
was travelling from Burg el Arab to Cairo with 17 other passengers, was forced down by two Messerschmitts
from II Gruppe, JG27. Unteroffizier Schneider flew one
of the Bfl09s. Although Gott at first escaped the damaged and grounded passenger plane, he chose to return to help
others trapped inside. Whilst he
was doing so, the aircraft blew up during a further attack by the
enemy aircraft and all those still on board were killed instantly.
Gott's death
provided an unexpected opportunity for Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery to become the new Eighth Army
Commander. In retrospect, this
proved to be a turning point for the entire war in the
Middle East, due to Montgomery’s
outstanding energetic leadership
in the months that followed.
By the time 3 Squadron personnel
resumed the fight on the 20th of August, they'd been refreshed
by a welcome 3-week stand-down,
which allowed many of the men to take a leave break in either Palestine
or Alexandria before starting a ten-day
intensive training program which included practice in formation
flying and in precision bombing and firing.
The atmosphere in Cairo at
around this particular time bordered on panic,
because there was a clear expectation that the advancing and newly-strengthened enemy might
break through the El Alamein defences and perhaps capture
the city.
C.O. Bobby Gibbes' broken leg
no longer prevented him from flying, so he
led the Squadron back into action performing armed reconnaissance
and bombing sorties within the El Alamein area.
(The caricature below shows Gibbes (seated)
with his outstanding
flight-leaders, Keith Kildey and Danny Boardman.)
"Picking the Team" a caricature drawn
in 1942 by 3SQN Replacement Pilot and peacetime cartoonist Jack
Lusby, featuring 3SQN's Leaders: (from left) Kildey, Gibbes and
Boardman.
Around that time, General Montgomery
had made it perfectly clear to all Allied forces that there would be
no more retreating. His orders were
that everyone, to the last man, would hold
their positions and keep on fighting until they dropped.
The enemy’s next
attack on the El Alamein line began at dusk on the 30th of
August 1942, employing a greater number of
troops than those of the Allied forces; strong divisions of Panzers
were comforted with the promise of on-going supplies of petrol and
other vital equipment and stores. Guarantee to maintain these supply
lines were made by General Kesselring, Commander-in-Chief South and
Rommel’s direct superior, and they boosted the Afrika Korps’ morale
and encouraged the commencement of their offensive.
Rommel’s objective was to secure the Alam-el-Halfa
Ridge before advancing north to the sea and capturing El
Alamein but, within a few days, serious problems started to occur, not the least of which was Rommel’s own
illness from a bad nose infection and a swelling of his liver which
prevented him from even walking. His
illness was to eventually cause his hospitalisation back to Germany
during the critical weeks ahead.
The unsuccessful Axis thrusts at
Alam Halfa Ridge (El Alamein). Rommel's plan was revealed by
code-breaking,
allowing Montgomery sufficient time to position his defences.
His attacking guns and armour were no
better than those used by the quite well-prepared
Allied defence and, by then, the Desert Air Force clearly held "air superiority",
with the arrival of new aircraft and squadrons including the
57th Fighter Group of the USAAF,
who'd arrived with their own Curtiss P40s (called
Warhawks by the
Americans) which were basically the same as the Kittyhawk IIs being issued to 3 Squadron.
[3 Squadron was
accorded the honour of being the only unit under RAF control that
received a long-term supply of Rolls Royce-engined Kittyhawk
IIs. Other squadrons had to put up with the
less-powerful Allison-engined Kittyhawk III.]
Mitchell B25 medium bombers had also
arrived with the US Air Force and this
increased air-power allowed 3 Squadron to
resume straight-out fighter work. Days
like the 8th of September were field days for the Squadron: three
enemy aircraft destroyed, two probables and five damaged ...and all
for the loss of a single Kittyhawk (the
pilot of which was only slightly injured).
That was the day Sergeant Garth Neill
earned his Distinguished Flying Medal by shooting down firstly a
Stuka, then an Mel09, probably destroying another and finally
chasing a third 109 over the tents of a German camp at ground level
before it crash landed near the camp.
A little light diversion helped brighten the men
during early September when several parties of female
nurses and V.A.D.s (Voluntary
Aids) from 7th Australian General Hospital visited,
followed by the girls from the South African "Ballyhoo"
concert party. The girls' visits
must have had some stimulating effect on the pilots at least,
because the records show that, on the 13th of September, at one
particular take-off, all aircraft were airborne within a record three minutes of call!
On the 14th, seven of the Squadron's
sergeant pilots were commissioned to the rank of Pilot Officer but
the day after was a bad day for the Desert Air Force as a whole, when eleven aircraft were lost during some
intensive aerial combats. The
German ace, Marseille
claimed seven of these in the eleven minutes between 1751 and 1802
hours.
3 Squadron lost two Kittyhawks that
day and two more were badly damaged. One
of the pilots who went down was Flying
Officer Jackie Donald who became a Prisoner-of-War (parachuting
onto the top of an Italian mess-tent!) but the other was
Sergeant Scribner who was killed in action.
For the next five weeks, the fighting
continued with losses chalked up on both sides including that of
Hauptmann Hans-Joachim Marseille and two fellow aces from his unit. Rommel's illness had removed him from
the fighting and General Stumme had been given command by the
Fuhrer.
On the 20th of October, 1942, Air
Vice-Marshal Coningham, the Air Officer Commanding the Desert Air
Force, notified all squadrons that General Montgomery’s ground
forces would shortly be attacking the enemy.
3 Squadron's first task in the new attack was to provide
close cover to Mitchell and Baltimore bombers,
which would be bombing the enemy airfields at El Daba.
Click here
to proceed to Part 3b:
ALAMEIN TO VICTORY
