大象传媒

THE FEW,
By Syd Smith.

The summer of 1940 was lovely, weather wise, clear azure blue skies with hours of brilliant sunshine. The British troops had been driven out of Europe by the years of preparation that had made the German army seem so superior, and we stood alone against the might of the Germans. Adolf Hitler had instructed his Luftwaffe Air Marshal Hermann Goering, 鈥渟end your bombers over to Britain and bomb the airfields first and the British people next. Do your bombing in daylight because there is nothing there to stop you. When you have done that I shall be ready to invade Britain and I will be accepted as their victor鈥�

One Sunday morning in August about eleven thirty, the air raid siren sounded. My mother turned the oven off as she was cooking the Sunday lunch, and we walked to the Anderson shelter in the garden. We didn鈥檛 hurry because usually one would have twenty minutes or more before the enemy planes reached where we lived. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining brilliantly as there wasn鈥檛 a cloud in the sky. I got to the shelter first and stood by the entrance facing south and waited for my parents and my brothers and sisters to come to the shelter.

Whilst I stood there I looked up into the sky and about twenty miles to the south I saw what I thought at first was a black rain cloud, but taking a closer look I realised it was a formation of German Dornier bombers and round the outside of the formation were Messerschmitt fighters. I took a quarter turn to the right and looked towards Biggin Hill aerodrome which was about four miles away as the crow flies. I then saw five Spitfires take off, one after the other and climb vertically until they disappeared from view. I was transfixed where I was and couldn鈥檛 move - this was going to be a hell of a fight! The sensible thing was to get down the shelter but I thought I would wait a little while and the thought came into my head 鈥�1 know what the Spitfires had done - they had flown off to another aerodrome to fight another day, and who could blame them as they were outnumbered three to one. God forgive me for this thought because suddenly all hell broke loose. The Spitfires had climbed above the Dornier formation and with the sun at their backs flew into the German bombers scattering them hither and thither. Within seconds planes were going everywhere and then I heard a terrific racket coming from the west which, if any one knows Coney Hall, West Wickham, would be in direct line with Birch Tree Avenue. I saw a Dornier coming straight at us from about 250 feet up. Along the side of the Dornier I could see sparks which I realised was its machine guns firing at a Spitfire which was right on its tail. Great chunks of the Dornier were coming away as it was hit by the guns of the Spitfire. Behind the Spitfire was a Messerschmitt which was also firing at the Spitfire. They all went over our house towards Hayes Common, in the direction of Bromley, then disappeared from view.

The next morning we listened to the radio and were told that the Dornier came down somewhere in Bromley. Unfortunately so did the Spitfire, but the good news was that the Spitfire pilot was safe. You can make aircraft by the hundreds, but the men who flew them were made in a special mould and not so easily replaced. At that time the whole of Britain depended on them - they stood alone between us and the Germans along with their Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.

At the end of the year, Hitler instructed Goering to stop daylight bombing and revert back to night bombing because they were losing too many planes. Hitler hadn鈥檛 realised that he had been sending his air force into a hornet nest and those hornets had a very nasty sting. A short time after Hitler stopped his daylight raids we were listening to the evening nine o鈥檆lock news as usual, when a familiar voice came on the air and said to us;
鈥淣ever, in the history... of human conflict.., has so much. ...been owed... by so many to so few.鈥�

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