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I was with the Squadron for several weeks before the Battle was withdrawn from front line service because of the appalling aircrew losses. The first mission I flew, just a few days after arriving at RAF Duxford involved 71 Battles. Our job was to fly over to France and stop the German advance towards the English Channel by bombing their supply convoys as they pushed the BEF (the British Expeditionary Force) back to the Channel and Dunkirk. We lost 40 aircraft on that raid alone; 120 airmen shot down and the stark reality is that most of them would have been killed.

The German Messerschmitt Me109 fighter pilots had gained a lot of experience in the Spanish Civil War and knew how, with terrifying efficiency, to work together and shoot down large numbers of slow flying, lightly armed bombers. To make matters worse, these were all daytime raids which we carried out; we didn't have either darkness or fighter cover to protect us. We were totally exposed to the lethal 20mm cannons of the Messerschmitt 109.

My last operational mission with the squadron was a few weeks later when 25 aircraft attacked a German target in northern France. My own aircraft was in the first wave and we dropped our bombs pretty well on the spot. I was sitting behind the mid-ship guns, looking back over the target area to report the success of our run to the pilot, when I saw a Me109 closing in on us very fast. Everything seemed to happen together then. I didn't have time to be frightened. I swung my guns round to bear on him, at the same time shouting, "109 skipper, 109 port side, corkscrew, corkscrew". Before the pilot had time to turn the Battle into a spinning nose-dive, I could see the fighter in the spider's web of my gun sights. The Battle was vibrating heavily but I could clearly see the bright yellow nose cone swooping towards us. I squeezed the trigger with all my might and I saw my tracer bullets stretch out across the sky and rip into his fuselage peppering the black cross painted below the cockpit. At the same time the German pilot started firing at us and I could see the flashes from his wing-mounted cannons spitting certain death straight at me. Time seemed to slow for those few seconds; there was no sound, no feeling, I was transfixed by the machine rushing towards me, waiting for the searing pain as the hot metal entered my body. But the impact of my own machine gun bullets had been enough to spoil his aim and as the Battle began to turn and fall, the shells flew by over our heads.

Instantly I was aware again; it was like opening the door to a noisy room. Our own engines were screaming and the Me109 roared passed with a thin trail of smoke in its slipstream. By now our skipper was corkscrewing the Battle for all our lives; a steep turn to port and then dive down at such a speed that the plane shuddered so violently I thought it would shake itself to bits. Over my shoulder (being the gunner I was facing backwards) I could see the ground rushing up at us and felt the 'G' force as the pilot struggled with the aircraft to bring it out of that dive. With little more than 100 feet to spare and with a scream that would have been the envy of any Stuka, the old Battle pulled level. I couldn't believe that she was going that fast, the ground flew past underneath me at a terrifying speed: but the skipper had done his job and we had lost our attacker. I am not sure whether I shot down that Me109 or just riddled it with bullets and I don't know what happened to the pilot; I saw no parachute and he might just as easily have been one of the explosions which were all around the target area. Quite honestly I didn't know and I didn't care. Had I not fired my guns first, the German pilot would have shot us down and we would all have been killed. He did what he had been trained to do and I did what I had been trained to do. It was war.

When we landed us back at RAF Duxford that afternoon, we were one of only eight planes to return to base from the 25 that had taken off. Another 51 airmen had been lost that day. Another 51 husbands, sons, boyfriends; we knew them all in one way or another and the Airmen's Mess was becoming a very quiet place. The Fairey Battle was withdrawn from front line service the next day and two days later I was posted to No.210 [FB] Squadron at RAF Station Pembroke Dock on Sunderland Flying Boats.

Two hours after my arrival I met the Flight Commander, Squadron Leader Pearce, who smoked a Sherlock Holmes pipe whilst flying. He would take a breath in and then blow out through the pipe, sending a fountain of lighted tobacco and ash into the cockpit, most of which landed on his uniform, causing it to be covered in tiny holes. In the early hours of the next morning I was airborne for the first time in a Sunderland Flying Boat.

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:

• 1) How important it is to feel welcome
• 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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