This pilot’s memoir was first published in 1986 by Goodall ; reissued 2023 by crecy.co.uk
“Off the coast of Scotland, a Dornier 17 Flying Pencil bomber on reconnaissance, circled round and round the convoy. Where were our fighters? Every now and then again a destroyer let off a few shots, forcing Jerry to keep his distance. Long after it had left, a deep soft purring sound brought us out on deck and there, in the crystal sunlight, I saw my first Spitfire. A strange thing happened. My palms sweated and my heart thumped; breathing hard, I followed the streamlined beauty with longing eyes. It was a form of love at first sight and one which never left me.”
This quote is typical of the style of the book, which I certainly recommend. You are out there flying, peering through sights, watching the exhaust turn brown as you apply emergency war power on the Merlin, the flak coming up, the planes crashing, etc. If you’ve read an account or two, what does this one add? A couple of things. The author knows how to carry a grudge, and he is quite scathing about the Americans and the New Zealand Air Force, despite being a Kiwi himself. Maybe he identifies more as British?
The author also consumes an amazing amount of alcohol, even at nights when there will be combat missions the day after. This drinking habit one also glimpses in Clostermann’s account and others: the pain of seeing comrades fail to return is drowned out by booze. The drinking goes on and on… there are women, too. Not surprising, but normally left out of these accounts. Here, they are left in, shall we say, at least to some extent. Another distinguishing feature is the amount of killing that takes place. It’s clear that the author loses respect for human life, and the low-level strafing in the autumn of 1944, flying the formidable Tempest, is a bloody and dangerous affair. A bumbling 109 is “dispatched” by the superior Tempest.
Killing is part of it, almost cherished. Fallen comrades are avenged. In one moving scene Spurdle visits the mother of his best friend whom he watched die in his Spit, in her apartment in Paris. He assures her that her son died a swift and painless death.
Bob has a wide set of experiences, at one point he is “flying” catapult-Hurricanes on merchant vessels to protect convoys against the FW-200, but never launches on his round trip to New York, complete with drinking spree. Then he is on the ground, guiding ground-attacks at the crossing of the Rhine. Then back in the air.
At one point, while in Holland, he commandeers a Spit, jumps in, flies to England and spends a week-end with his wife – recently married – before flying back to continue fighting.
The end is quite bitter. Denied a career in the New Zealand Air Force by careerists who have never fired their guns in anger, he resolves never to fly again. What would be the point, he thinks to himself, and embarks on the rest of his life.
schoutbynacht 