These are responses to questions posted last month to my friend Alan Peart who flew Spitfires in WW2 (in RL)...
1. Which Theatre did you prefer and why?
A: I served in three theatres; Britain, Middle East, and Far East. It’s hard to say that I had a preference, as all were a bit dangerous! Britain had the advantage in that during time off one could always go to the pub and socialise, and there was a nice comfortable bed to sleep on. Meals were good too! The Middle East saw the nastiest fighting where we in the early stages took a beating on Spit Mk5’s, ending up with only one aircraft and about thirteen pilots. Then we were given Mk9’s and things improved a lot. The fighting in North Africa was more sustained and severe in North Africa, and at one time we were without rations for quite a while in the early stages; also without a roof of any kind for a short time. The Far East had the worst weather conditions by far, and flying in those was a dicey business during the monsoon. We had a considerable advantage over Jap fighters in terms of performance, but they were very manoeuvrable and aggressive. Malaria and dengue and a host of other nasty diseases were prevalent and the British forces are recorded as suffering 500,000 casualties from disease in one year. There were other advantages in being in Britain so I suppose my answer is that I favoured Britain although I was there for only one year approximately.
2. Euro theatre vs PAC theatre: was there a variation in tactics associated with the types of planes expected to be encountered? Sort of a Big wing or small formation concept. Theres been a lot of discussion about the use of the Big wing theory during the Battle of Britain and its application in the year following.
A: Firstly I didn’t fly in the Pacific theatre but am assuming that the Jap fighters in the Pacific theatre and the India/Burma theatre (Far East) had much the same capabilities. In the Euro theatre, accepting that the Spitfire was more manoeuvrable than any of the German fighters, our tactics were to get on their tail and to stick there until forced off. This is of course simplistic in that the Germans used acceleration and speed to disengage the moment any of us got on to their tails. On sweeps though we were usually the ones attacked and one took defensive action while hoping to get in a killing shot. At that time I was on Spit. Mk5Bs & 5Cs, outclassed by the FW 190’s. In the Far East (i.e. India/Burma) the Japs could out turn us so we adopted the diving attack followed by a climb back into a higher attacking position again. That was the general idea but again things rarely followed a general pattern. In N. Africa we used to do wing sweeps, but in the early stages it was rare for even the squadron to get up as a whole. Mostly the day was filled with scrambles of pairs and flights to meet raids on our aerodrome and the nearby port of Bone. I am afraid that in that climate of constant defence there was insufficient time to assemble a wing formation, especially as the enemy fighter base was only about 30 to 40 miles away.
3. Mechanically, which climate proved the most difficult to maintain equipment?
A: The Middle East where the climate was dry and dusty in general although at Bone it was wet and extremely muddy. We had quite a lot of cannon stoppages there. If “equipment” included clothing etc. then the India Burma theatre was bad. The clothing used to rot quickly and literally fell apart off our backs.
4. Ground crew quality - which theatres crews seemed to do the best job?
A: Each fighter squadron had its ground crew which stayed with it wherever the squadron went. Only under invasion conditions did we have commando ground crew, and at times we had to do our own DI’s. Our ground crew was the best but they did make mistakes. Two very nearly cost me my life.
5. Could he compare his experiences fighting against the airforces of both Germany and Japan? How were they similar / different?
A: Hard to answer! The German Air force in the early stages of the war had experienced pilots who were a menace. Later it became apparent to us that losses were forcing less experienced pilots into the fray, and of course our morale went up. The Germans by and large obeyed decent rules of warfare and so did we, with odd exception. The fighting was hard but in a strange way fair. The same applied to the Japanese I suppose, but there was no love lost there and no quarter given. The Japanese pilots were very aggressive and seemed to be experienced. Again in the face of severe losses they were capable of running away like the rest of us.
More to come......
