大象传媒

I volunteered for the RAF on Monday 4th September 1939.

At the end of my various training courses I got my Operational posting to RAF Station Duxford near Cambridge. Spitfires were taking off and landing at fairly regular intervals, some showing bullet holes and damage from contact with the enemy over the English Channel.

Most of the RAF's bombers in 1939 and early 1940 were generally out-powered and out gunned by the Luftwaffe. The lucky aircrews were posted to fly in Wellington bombers but I had drawn the short straw and had been posted to a Fairey Battle squadron: they were known as flying coffins' because the aircrew losses in them were so high.

The other chaps in the Airmen's Mess quietly made me feel very welcome. It is difficult to convey now, how important that was. On an operational Station no one knew how long anyone would be there. In the front line of aerial combat, where bombing missions were flown nearly every day, 'here today and gone tomorrow' took on a whole new meaning.

The Fairey Battle was a single-engine, light bomber monoplane with a cruising speed of only 200mph - not very fast when our main enemy was the Me109 which had a top speed of 375mph. The Battle crew consisted of a pilot, a bomb-aimer/observer and a wireless operator/air gunner - in 1939 that was me. The armaments were two guns, one fixed on the wing and the other amidships operated by the gunner.

Nevertheless, despite its lamentable lack of power, speed and weaponry, it was a Fairy Battle that shot down the first German aircraft of the Second World War on Wednesday 20th September 1939.

You can read much more about Ted Cowling's wartime exploits in his fascinating, funny and sometimes desperately tragic autobiography, 'The Journey', proceeds of which will go towards the Severn Hospice.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Becky Barugh of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Ted Cowling and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See more of Ted's stories:

• 2) Neither darkness nor fighter cover for protection
• 3) Highly dangerous missions
• 4) A hand picked crew
• 5) I left Oban for the last time
• 6) Winds that cut like a knife
• 7) Top Gun

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