Memories of the Battle of Britain

[Davedog74]

+1 gilly
raf hornchurch station diary august 31st 1940
a large formation of enemy bombers,a most impressive sight in vic formation at around 15,000, feet,reached the aerodrome and dropped thier bombs(probably sixty in all)the bombs landed in a line from the other side of our dispersal pens to the petrol dump,and beyond into elm park,perimeter track,dispersal and barrack block windows suffered,but no other damage to buildings was caused and the aerodrome ,in spite of its ploughed up condition,remained serviceable. 54 squadron was ordered off as the bombs were falling,and eight machines safely left the ground. the remaining section,however had just become airborne as the bombs exploded. all of these machines were wholly wrecked in the air. the survival of the pilots is a complete miracle. sergeant davis,taking off across the airfield towards the hangers,was thrown back to the other side of the river ingrebourne,two fields away,he scrambled out of his machine unharmed.
jack shenfield- mechanic, talking about the same raid poor old sergeant davis appeared hours later,asking for a cup of tea after being blown up, the whole fuselage went,the wings were left on the aerodrome ,and the fuselage blown over the river,which was quite a distance,how they all survived is a miracle

[winny]

Originally Posted by Davedog74

+1 gilly
raf hornchurch station diary august 31st 1940....

Here's that story from the one of the pilots view.

Flying Officer Al Deere 54 Squadron

On the 31st of August, I was held up taking off by a new pilot who'd got himself in the take off lane - didn't know where to go. He delayed me.
By the time I'd got him sorted out, I was the last off, and caught the bombs - and was blown sky high - the three of us were. But we all got away with it.
I got pretty badly concussed. The terrifying bit was that I was upside down in the cockpit, embedded in the ground. I could hardly see daylight and I could smell petrol.
I knew that I was likley to go up in flames at any moment. I heard this voice say, 'Are you there?' And it was Eric Edsall who was my number three. He had his wing blown off,
and had got out of his cockpit, saw me and had crawled across to the aircraft.

The Spitfire has a little side door which drops down. Eric managed to lever this open and got the straps and parachute undone, and managed to squeeze me out of this little door.
He couldn't walk as his hip was dislocated. So I got him up and carried him to the saftey of one of the hagers, just as some 109's came down to straffe us.
I was scalped and concussed - I had gone along upside down for about a 100 yards. As for the number two, he was blown outside the airfield perimeter still strapped inside his cockpit
and landed in a nearby creek (which we called sh*t creek), he landed the right way up and had to walk all the way round the wire to get back in. He arrived a couple of hours later.

Same event, as seen By Richard Hillary

I saw the three Spitfires. One moment they were about 20 feet up in close formation; The next catapulted apart as though on elastic. The leader [Deere] went over
on his back and ploughed along the runway with a rending crash of tearing fabric; No. 2 put his wing in and spun round on his airscrew, while the plane on the left was blasted,
wingless into the next field.