Dogfight by Adam Claasen

Fighter Command pilots and gunners never had a chance. Trautloft observed fragments of fuselage torn away as his cannon fire raked the flank of a Defiant. The machine exploded in a fiery inferno.[22] The inexperienced RAF pilots had not been briefed on the best defensive tactic to give them a chance of survival. Consequently, instead of circling the wagons, the Defiants persisted in flying on a straight and level course. The Me 109s dived on the hapless turret-fighters and used their momentum to sweep quickly around for further attacks. The arrival of a Hurricane unit prevented the destruction of every Defiant. Nevertheless, the results were devastating, and it is likely that Kemp and Kidson and their gunners were killed early in the action. Only three of the nine Defiants were to make it home, and one of these had to be written off. Of the crews, four pilots and six gunners were lost.
    The sole New Zealander to survive the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ was Gard’ner. He recalled years later how the Germans had gained the upper hand, bouncing them out of the sun. His gunner was most likely killed in the initial ‘thud, thud, thud’ of cannon fire. ‘I could see a small naval vessel,’ and he tried to get close to it but overshot by a wide margin. In the moments before hitting the sea he made the mistake of sliding back the cockpit hood and unstrapping his harness in order to make a quick exit. On impact, he was knocked out as his head bounced against the front and rear of the cockpit. He came to ‘in the water and struggling to get myself out of the aeroplane’. Blood from a deep cut across his forehead blinded the Kiwi, and then ‘suddenly I heard a voice saying, “Come on, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”’[23]
    Gard’ner was hauled aboard the rescue vessel, but his gunner went down with the Defiant. The New Zealander promptly passed out, waking hours later in hospital with his head swathed in bandages. The unit had been decimated. The handful of crew and aircraft that remained were transferred to Scotland and the other Defiant unit, 264 Squadron, was immediately pulled from action. Suffering head injuries, Gard’ner was placed on sick leave for three months, only returning to the squadron, which had been transferred to night-fighter operations, in October.[24]
    Action was sporadic over the following weeks, but a couple of Australians saw heavy fighting. On 20 July, Walch was leading Blue Section of238 Squadron on a standing patrol over a convoy south-east of Portland. During the midday flight he became separated from the other Hurricanes in his section, but continued his duties until required to switch to his reserve tank and head for his home field of Tangmere. Then he spotted a formation of fifteen aircraft coming in at altitude towards the unsuspecting convoy. The Tasmanian pulled his machine around and climbed to make an attack from out of the sun. Bombs exploded around one of the escorting destroyers as he ‘pulled the plug’ of the fighter’s booster, propelling it towards three Me 109s. At barely 50 yards he laid down a two-second blanket of lead on one of the German fighters. The results were instantaneous: writhing black smoke spewed from the engine as a telltale sign of terminal injuries sustained by the 12-cylinder engine. Confirming the diagnosis, the machine fell into a vertical seaward dive. Within seconds, the two remaining Luftwaffe airmen were doing everything in their power to get astern of the young Australian. ‘I pulled up in a steep stall,’ he wrote in his after-action report, ‘and made for home.’[25]
    At 6.20p.m. 65 Squadron, at its forward Manston base, was scrambled to intervene in a Luftwaffe raid on a convoy off Dover. Olive led Yellow Section. Although the enemy aircraft attacking the vessels were nowhere to be seen, he did spy an Me 109 about to attack an inattentive Hurricane in the distance. The