Free Dogfight by Adam Claasen Page A

of Australian-born pilots saw action on 11 July: John Curchin, Richard Glyde and Flight Lieutenant Stuart Walch. A morning attack on a convoy drew out Curchin’s 609 Squadron. At the outbreak of the campaign the Melburnian was still relatively inexperienced when his unit was jumped by twenty Me 109s. He barely managed to scrape through his first air battle and a number of squadron members were less fortunate. By midday, 87 Squadron had joined the fray with Glyde as Blue 2.
    Glyde, unlike Curchin, was already an accomplished fighter pilot with four victories to his name in France and a DFC pinned to his chest. Originally from Perth, Western Australia, he was denied admittance to the RAAF on medical grounds, forcing him to pay his own fare to Britain, where he obtained direct entry to the RAF. On this day, his first major engagement, he attacked three Me 110s near Portland. The first sustained damage to both engines. His next target was less easily dispatched, with the rear gunner shooting a large hole in Glyde’s canopy and placing three bullets in his starboard wing-tip. Finally, he leapt to aid a fellow Hurricane pilot having trouble with another Me 110. Although the tail gunner’s aim was for the most part wayward, he did manage to drill a bullet through the control panel, striking the armour plating near Glyde’s head. Shaken but undeterred, the Anzac reeled in the fleeing intruder forcing the Luftwaffe airman to put his aircraft down in the water, where it sank moments later.[15] Meanwhile, Walch of 238 Squadron engaged a Me 110, also near Portland.[16] A native of Hobart, Tasmania, Walch fired three-second bursts as he closed to within fifty yards. He saw it plunge into the sea, with black smoke trailing from an engine. The Anzac had chalked up the squadron’s first confirmed victory.[17] This was tempered by the loss of two Anzacs in short order.
    Twenty-four hours later the Kiwis suffered their first loss when Aucklander Henry Allen, piloting a Hurricane out of North Weald, Essex, was hit. Charged with protecting convoys plying the Thames Estuary, 151 Squadron was ordered to cover a small armada codenamed ‘Booty’. Soon after, word was received of incoming enemy machines. At 9.00a.m. in broken cloud cover the squadron fell amongst the bombers.[18] The part-Maori twenty-six-year-old, with a cabinet full of sporting trophies and medals from his college days in New Zealand and three years as an officer for the Blue Funnel Line steamship company under his belt, was about toengage the enemy for his first and last time.[19] Met by labyrinthine crossfire, the Hurricane’s engine was knocked out of action, blades frozen in blunt testimony to the damage. Squadron pilots saw his machine glide seaward. The waters off Essex claimed aircraft and pilot.
    The very next day, 13 July, an Australian was lost. RAAF Point Cook graduate Flight Lieutenant John Kennedy was covering Convoy ‘Bread’ on its way to Portland. His fellow Australian in 238 Squadron, Walch, was close at hand when Kennedy spotted a lone Do 17. The Sydneysider ordered his section to intercept the bomber, only to be bounced by three Messerschmitts. Kennedy was hit and attempted to crash-land on the beach, but the machine stalled and he was killed. The first New Zealander and the first Australian to die in the battle had done so within a day of each other.
    Over the next ten days the Luftwaffe employed the same tactics as weather permitted. Bombers and fighters would accumulate over the French coast and then in strength swing west in pursuit of a convoy. This pattern was repeated two to three times a day. With the advantage of surprise and numbers, the strategy was generally successful and culminated on 19 July with extremely heavy losses to Fighter Command—the greater part of which were suffered by Defiant-equipped squadrons.
Slaughter of the Innocents
    Not all Anzacs were fortunate enough to find themselves at the controls