1940: BATTLE OF BRITAIN
1940: The Battle of Britain
Tony Lovell started 1940 with five days’ leave from 5th January. He was promoted to Flying Officer on 25th May 1940, three days before 41 Sqdn went south to Hornchurch to swap places with its alter ego, 54 Sqdn, and operate over the beaches of Dunkirk.
Hornchurch was headquarters of 11 Group’s Sector D, which covered the all-important eastern approaches to London up the Thames estuary or across the Channel from Calais.
41 Squadron arrived in time to benefit from the airfield beautification programme initiated that Spring by the station commander, G/Capt. C.A. “Daddy” Bouchier, who in April had issued the various squadrons and sections with gardening tools and told them to get on with it. The result was that by the end of the month:
the main road to Headquarters and the ground around the hangars and workshops are gay with Spring flowers and should be gayer still when Summer comes. [1]
This may not have been much consolation to the pilots of 54 Sqdn, which by the end of May stood sorely in need of rest and refit. Their ‘A’ Flight commander Al Deere, shot down near Dunkirk on 28th May, returned to the mess at Hornchurch by lorry, destroyer and tube train too late on the 29th to notice that 41 Sqdn had arrived and that his own squadron had departed for Catterick. At lunch the next day he met for the first time some of the 41 Sqdn pilots:
“Already some of them had chalked up their first victories which they were excitedly relating to all who would listen. Many of them - Flight Lieutenant Norman Ryder, Pilot Officer Tony Lovell, Pilot Officer ‘Mac’ Mackenzie, to name but a few - I was to meet again on many a similar occasion when the two squadrons changed over at Hornchurch after an intensive period of operations...”. [2]
It was on 31st May that Tony shared an He.111 with his flight commander, Terry Webster, and on the following day - 1st June - shared another with fellow Roman Catholic Buck Morrogh-Ryan.
At this point the squadron would have had little need for sophisticated navigational skills. As Birdy Bird-Wilson of 17 Sqdn explained later, all you had to do was to head for the column of black smoke that rose in the air from the burning oil storage tanks at Dunkirk. [3]
A scrapbook kept by Tony’s mother contains evidence of his “first Hun”. [4] Prints from his camera gun show a cloud of dark smoke issuing from the starboard engine of a German bomber. Tony’s two half-Heinkels at Dunkirk are recorded in 41 Sqdn’s Operations Record Book:
May 31st 0445 Four sections carried out offensive patrol over Dunkirk. F/Lt WEBSTER shot down one Messerschmitt 109, and accompanied by P/O Lovell shot down one Heinkel 111....
June 1st 0825 Four sections carried out offensive patrol over Dunkirk. F/Lt WEBSTER shot down two Dornier 215 [one unconfirmed]. P/O.LOVELL and P/O MORROGH-RYAN shot down one Heinkel 111. P/O. STAPLETON reported missing, since confirmed Prisoner of War. F/O. LEGARD Reported missing.
Tony in his later calculations seems to have discounted one of these half-Heinkels - probably the first, as the ORB entry is less specific; use there of the words “accompanied by” suggests he may not have fired. He was not given to wild claims (whereas it was said of Terry Webster by one pilot that “he shot down Heinkels which no-one else as much as saw”), while Bill Stapleton remarked that:
Many of those who, today, spend so much time talking of their exploits which seem to expand with each telling, many of those wearing medals which could not possibly have been earned now that the true losses on each side are known, receive much publicity. Tony was the sort of man who would never have made a claim unless he was absolutely sure of its validity; he was a man of honour.
The daily patrols over Dunkirk started early - Tony was airborne at 0430 on 2nd June, and at 0415 on the 4th, on each occasion being up for more than two hours. It was at this time that, out of ammo, he is said by Wally Wallens (who was on his tail) to have pursued a Ju.88 so closely and at such low level that the German aircraft crashed on a beach in its attempts to evade him. [5]
On another occasion when he had exhausted his ammunition over the Kent coast, Tony tagged on to a pair of low-flying Me.109s as they headed home for France and took up formation astern. Wallens quotes Tony’s “hilarious” description of the subsequent action:
We were going along nicely when suddenly there was a scream of ‘Achtung, Schpitfeuer’ and the 109s split-arsed away in complete shock, one heading left for Norway and the other turning right for Spain, most unsociably. Can I claim for the two (as) probables, full of twitch and out of petrol?
In June 41 Sqdn returned to Catterick, and pilots took a few days’ leave. July was a slow month, although on 8th July Blue section, led by Tony, seems to have accounted for a Ju.88 off Scarborough, apparently assisted by a section of Hurricanes from 249 Sqdn at Church Fenton.
However no-one from 249 Sqdn saw any Spitfires in this action, and the Hurricane pilots - according to W/Cdr Tom Neil - were aggrieved at the claim put in by 41 Sqdn. Yet an advanced combat report, in Sgt Jack Allison‘s own handwriting, shows that at 1130 on 8th July a section of “B” Flight fell in with a Ju.88 south-east of Scarborough at 13,000 feet. Tony Lovell was leading the section, and ordered the attack. Reported Sgt Allison:
F/O Lovell attacked & I saw a large piece of what appeared to be a portion of the tail fall off. I then proceeded with my attack when the enemy went amongst the clouds. I then saw F/O Lovell following him again & got into position, but lost him in the clouds. Three Hurricanes were circling round at the time. I saw no enemy fire. I gave two bursts & fired 221 rounds.
Enemy casualties were 1 Prisoner, 2nd div. Pocklington, & one J.U.88. [6]
Two days later, on 10th July, came what has since been recognised as the start of the Battle of Britain. Down south, Hornchurch was in the thick of it. By the fourth week of July 54 Sqdn had been severely cut up, losing six pilots in three days; only five of the latter’s 17 pre-Dunkirk pilots now remained and they, as Air Commodore Deere wrote later, “had reached the point of physical and mental tiredness beyond which lies the realm of fear”.
While Alan Deere and his C.O. “Prof” Leathart argued the pros and cons of making a formal request for the squadron to be pulled back, the decision was removed from them by an order withdrawing 54 Sqdn to Catterick . On 26th July no.41 Sqdn went south from Catterick to relieve them.
Over the following fortnight most of Tony’s daylight hours were spent at 11 Group’s forward base at Manston. This was the nearest airfield to France; like Hornchurch it was then an all-grass aerodrome, and was to attract unwelcome attention from the Luftwaffe as the Battle of Britain progressed (it was here that ground staff were later said to have refused to leave their shelters when raids were at their most intense, and were threatened by an officer with a pistol).
It was on 28th July that 41 Sqdn returned to Hornchurch from Manston at mid-day, and were promptly scrambled in squadron strength at 1430 hrs to patrol Dover at 20,000ft. Here they found three other squadrons already engaging a force of 50 German bombers escorted by the same number of fighters.
On arrival the Spitfires of 41 Sqdn were immediately attacked by the escorting Me.109s, with Tony Lovell as Blue 2 coming under fire from the leading German ace Werner “Daddy” Mölders, who had taken command of JG51 that very day.
Green leader Terry Webster fired on the Me.109, which fell away in a spin; Tony crash-landed at “Charlie Three” (Manston), slightly wounded in the thigh, and was taken to Margate hospital.
Mölders himself, who was largely responsible for the successful German fighter formation known to the Luftwaffe as a Schwarm (and to the RAF when they adopted it as the finger-four) was then attacked by “Sailor” Malan of 74 Sqdn, wounded in the legs, and had to force-land on his return to base at Wissant.
A few days later chief Spitfire test pilot Jeffrey Quill, arrived at Hornchurch to join 65 Sqdn, and
“(I) met many people I already knew.....Sailor Malan and H.M. Stephen and Mungo Park of 74 Sqdn were there and Al Deere of 54 Sqdn and Webster and Norman Ryder of 41 Sqdn, all of whom had been amongst the early RAF pilots to collect their Spitfires from Eastleigh.” [7]
Meanwhile Terry Webster was again Green leader on the morning of 8th August when his section - himself, Tony, and Wally Wallens as Green 3 - was detached from a squadron patrol to intercept a number of Me.109s which were trailing their coats near Manston.
Tony, with oxygen trouble, was unable to contribute to the scrap which followed, during which Wallens, having disposed of two Me.109s, found himself out on a limb, landed at Manston, found it clear of 41 Sqdn, and promptly took off again to re-join the action.
On the afternoon of 8th August 54 Sqdn came south to Hornchurch, and 41 Sqdn returned north to Catterick. In one fortnight they had flown 234 sorties, engaged the enemy five times, and been credited with nine enemy destroyed, two probably destroyed, and three damaged.
Against that score had to be set the loss of one pilot of 41 Sqdn - F/O Doug Gamblen - and his Spitfire, and the crash-landing of at least another five Spitfires, of which three were written off).
The return to Catterick coincided with Tony’s 21st birthday, on 9th August 1940. There was a party in dispersal, and champagne flowed until late in the evening. S/Ldr Frank Usmar, then a sergeant pilot, remembered:
“It was the first time I had drunk champagne, and me and one other Sgt thought it was a bit like lemonade, until the cold air hit us. The F/Sgt i/c of the ground crews put me to bed in the dispersal as I was due off in the early morning patrol, 5am with Tony leading.” [8]
In the early light, the two sergeant pilots agreed later, the sea had been about the same colour as they felt. Frank Usmar nearly landed with his undercarriage up, until Tony’s voice over the R/T (and a blaze of red Verey lights) woke him up and he went round again.
“Tony was a good leader and liked by us all,” Frank Usmar said later. [9]
On 15th August the Luftwaffe staged its biggest-ever attack. All three of its air ‘fleets’ were engaged, and in the belief that it would find the north of England unprepared, Luftflotte 5 launched an attack with 65 He.111s of I and III/KG26 escorted by 34 Me.110s of I/ZG76 from Stavanger.
To meet the threat of what radar first identified as a raid of some 30 aircraft, 72 Sqdn was scrambled from Acklington shortly after mid-day. As the incoming raid resolved itself into three times the expected number of enemy, one of the Spitfire pilots anxiously called up his acting squadron leader on the R/T: “Have you seen them?” To which came the now-famous stuttered reply from S/Ldr Ted Graham: “Of course I’ve seen the b-b-b-bastards. I’m trying to w-w-w-work out wh-wh-what to do!”
The attack which followed had the effect of splitting the raiding force in two, with the more southerly of the two groups heading for Sunderland. Further down the coast, at 41 Sqdn‘s West Hartlepool forward base, Tony Lovell - who was leading the section at readiness - fumed with impatience: “50-plus? Why are we still on the ground?” he demanded over the telephone at dispersal. [10]
Within minutes the squadron was scrambled with 13 aircraft, and over Seaham harbour just before 1300 hours fell in with a 50-strong group of Heinkels in a mass arrowhead formation with an escort of an estimated 40 Me.110s following astern and above.
Together with 607 Sqdn, the 41 Sqdn Spitfires piled in under the leadership of P/O Ben Bennions, whose “A” Flight was to attack the bombers while “B” Flight, led by Tony, was to go after the fighter escort. Bennions, as Yellow 1, had been guided to the German formation - which according to the composite combat report also included Do.17s and Ju.88s - by the sight of ack-ack shells bursting well behind the enemy aircraft. [11]
In the action that followed he attacked a rear-escort Me.110, sent it smoking into a cloud, and perhaps aided by Ted Shipman, brought down a second near Barnard Castle. The German aircraft was no. M8+CH of 1/ZG76, whose crew of Oblt. Kettling and Obergefr. Volk were captured.
Yellow 2 (Norman Ryder) was busy knocking pieces off a Ju.88 which had fired on him; Buck Morrogh-Ryan meanwhile blacked out while turning to chase another Ju.88 which had stall-turned in front of Norman Ryder, and at which he had let off a burst of 800 rounds. [12]
Blue and Green had attacked the enemy fighters from astern. But the Me.110s stuck resolutely together, and it was not until Red and Yellow diverted to make a dummy attack from the beam that the desired dogfight took place. [13]
Tony Lovell fired on the rearmost Me.110; his six-second burst ignited the German’s long-range Dackelbauch fuel tank, and the aircraft exploded. Another Me.110 was accredited to him as a probable:
Blue 1 saw three ME110s turn round in line astern and attacked the last of the 3. No.1 attack 250 yds 1 burst 7 secs terrific explosion and flames obviously from tank with partial disintegration of e/a. Attacked another ME110. Many pieces fell away & e/a seemed out of control. 11 sec burst. Total rounds fired 2680. Stoppage in 1 gun due to separated case.
The Me.110 which blew up in Tony Lovell’s attack may have been that of the ZG76’s I wing commander Hptmn Restemeyer, who with Hptmn Hartwich failed to return from this action; Stab I/ZG76 also lost its adjutant, Oblt. Loobes.
Tony’s combat report on this occasion was in his own hand, as Spy (F/Lt Lord Gisborough, otherwise Gissy) presumably didn't have enough time to interview all the pilots from all the actions that day before composing his own combined report for teleprinting to Group:
“Date: 15/8/40. I was leading ‘B’ Flight 41 behind ‘A’ Flight at 16,000 ft when Yellow leader sighted a formation of enemy bombers & fighters. I was instructed to lead ‘B’ Flight against the fighters. The enemy fighters turned round in line astern & came towards us. I tol the rest of the Flight to take a fighter each & myself attacked the rear Me 110. Doing a no.1 attack after a six seconds burst he blew up iin flames & smoke. I broke away & attacked another Me 110 which was attacking a Spitfire, I fired the remainder of my rounds at him. Pieces flew off the enemy aircraft & he seemed to be out of control. An Me.110 was on my tail so I broke away & having no more ammunition returned & landed at base. Both attacks were carried out at 250 yds. I had one stoppage in no.3 starboard gun owing to separated case." [14]
Luftflotte 5 that day lost eight bombers and seven fighters in combat, and another fighter crash-landed in Denmark, giving a 16 percent loss rate. Of that number, 41 Sqdn claimed one bomber and three fighters destroyed, four aircraft probably destroyed, and five damaged.
The following day, August 16th, Tony Lovell went home on leave for six days. On the face of it, the timing appears odd: why should he abandon Catterick just as the Luftwaffe was showing its first real interest in the north of England, and the prospects of serious action for the fighter squadrons of 13 Group were at their brightest?
On the other hand, 41 Sqdn had taken no mauling and would not by any means have been short of pilots. Added to that, the pressure on Tony to return to Portrush on or close to his 21st birthday would have been high; to have gone on leave from Hornchurch in the thick of the battle is unlikely to have appealed as an option.
At Portrush, on the last day of his leave, and almost certainly prompted by his Aunt Kitty, Tony made a will which named his mother as sole heir and “executor”.
The will was not proved until January 1968, when his personal estate in Great Britain was valued at £330=15s=0d. [15] The document itself is coarsely handwritten in a jumble of upper and lower case lettering on a plain sheet of thin lined paper, in a hand that is not his. At one point the originator puts “Testatrix” for “Testator”, and makes the correction by overwriting the mistake.
Tony first signs his will as ADJ Lovell of 15 Ballywillan Road, Portrush; he then deletes the initials, and signs his name in full. The witnesses are Kathleen Daphne O’Neill (the formidable Aunt Kitty), and J B ?Gilkes, commissioner for oaths. There is also a signature which may be read as J.C. ?Machin, Duncreggan, Portrush.
At the end of August 41 Sqdn was on notice to change places once more with 54 Sqdn at Hornchurch; they swapped over on 3rd September, dropping in on Duxford en route while a German bombing raid cleared the Hornchurch sector.
The 41 Sqdn pilots thought the 54 Sqdn types looked all in. Al Deere reported Tony Lovell as telling him:
“We were amazed at the eagerness of you chaps to get away from Hornchurch, but we soon learned why. None of you looked as if you had slept for a week, and you, Al, with your bandaged head and plastered wrist were an unnerving sight to our new pilots who hadn’t tasted combat. They wondered what had hit them, or was about to hit them. It wasn’t long though before most of us felt like you looked.”
Nonetheless 54 Sqdn had done better than some other outfits, having lost only nine Spitfires and one pilot in 11 days.
September 5th was fine and warm. The whole of 41 Sqdn was scrambled from Hornchurch at 0940 to intercept the first incoming raids of the day, and from 27,000ft above Canterbury, as Wally Wallens says, “went downstairs at a rate of knots” to attack a 40-strong force of Do.17s escorted by some 50 Me.109s flying at 16,000 to 22,000ft.
By the time the squadron returned to base Terry Webster had shot down two Me.109s and damaged a third; F/O Boyle had also shot down an Me.109, Wally Wallens had damaged another, and Ben Bennions and Sgt Bob Carr-Lewty each claimed a probable.
The tables were turned in the afternoon, when 41 Sqdn was scrambled against a mixed bag of He.111s and Me.110s at 15,000ft over the Thames estuary. Eight of the 12 pilots had already flown in the morning sortie, but only one - Tony Lovell - was flying the same aircraft - R6885; and the C.O. had been forced to swap from P9429, which had been running rough, to P9428.
Tasked to patrol the line Thameshaven-Gravesend, but with no time to gain a height advantage, S/Ldr ‘Robin’ Hood led his squadron in a head-on attack in line astern and open echelon port. The high cover of Me.109s came down like a wolf on the fold, and in the mêlée that followed S/Ldr Hood was said to have collided head-on with Terry Webster; both men were killed.
Wally Wallens, flying no.2 to the C.O., jumped a pair of Me.109s heading south-east and was himself jumped in turn. Badly injured in the leg - he never flew in fighters again - and with a jammed canopy, he crash-landed his damaged Spitfire near Orsett.
Tony Lovell’s aircraft was presumably also hit, as it spiralled down to crash not far from Terry’s P6635, in Kimberley Road, South Benfleet, where it burned out. [16] The wreckage of S/Ldr Hood’s aircraft may have fallen south of Billericay. Tony stayed with the aircraft for as long as possible in an attempt to keep it away from the built-up area, and did not bale out until dangerously low.
It has been suggested that Terry Webster was actually in collision with the Hurricane of F/Lt Lovett from 73 Sqdn; the scatter of wreckage from both aircraft implying a common point of origin over Bonvilles Farm at North Benfleet, Essex. [17] Jeffrey Quill believed that Webster had hit his parachute harness release by mistake on baling out, although either theory may be borne out by the fact that Terry Webster’s parachute was later found, unopened and with broken straps, in a field not far from the wreckage of his Spitfire. [18]
The original thesis of a collision between the C.O. and Terry Webster is mentioned by Wally Wallens in his book Flying Made My Arms Ache, and it was Wallens who told Peta Webster the circumstances of the case when he met her a little later in London.
Nothing had been said to her officially, except that her husband’s death had not been the direct result of enemy action; she therefore assumed that he had been hit by friendly flak. Nor was any mention made of a collision in the Operations Record Book, which at this period was being very tersely written up; only that
S/Ldr HOOD reported Missing. F/Lt WEBSTER killed in action. F/O WALLENS injured in leg and admitted to HOSPITAL. F/O LOVELL baled out near BENFLEET,
uninjured. [19]
Wallens however told Peta that during the action he had “heard this terrible bang”, and had drawn the assumption that it was Terry in collision with another aircraft. Peta Webster felt that Wally was embarrassed, and holding something back. She therefore concluded that it was Wally who had collided with her husband, especially as in later years he did not keep in touch with her.
She remained of this view for 50 years, until her attention was drawn to Wallens’ book. [20]
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the pilot who collided with Terry Webster was in fact his wingman Tony Lovell, whose aircraft was certainly wrecked that day. There are a number of contradictory crash reports which show quantities of aircraft falling out of the sky above south Essex between 1500 and 1530 that day, and it has not yet been possible to correlate these with any degree of certainty. [21]
In any event, 41 Sqdn had effectively lost three pilots in an afternoon. Tony himself was seen to have hurt his ankle slightly when, parachute over his arm, he was taken at his own insistence to Kimberley Road to see what damage if any his aircraft had done.
In fact most of his Spitfire had fallen in the road, with the engine probably detaching itself on impact and finishing up in a vacant piece of land between two bungalows. Bits of the engine had however gone through the roof of one of the bungalows and had caused a small fire, which the householder was busy trying to extinguish with a garden hose. [22]
There had also been damage to Tony’s uniform trousers, in the form of a rip at the knee. His trousers were his lucky talisman, and had already been torn when Werner Mölders attacked him on 28th July (had Mölders’ fire been displaced by 12 inches, a rip in the trousers would have been the least of Tony’s troubles).
Taking the matter personally, Tony determined to take his revenge for this second assault on his uniform. He instructed his fitter – LAC Henry Crawford – to paint the nose of his Spitfire yellow to match the yellow cowlings and extremities of the Me.109s of 1/JG3 ‘Udet’: this was intended to be Lovell’s Reply (rather like MacRobert’s Reply, but cheaper). The scheme died new-born when the CO got wind of it, shooting it down on the not unreasonable grounds that it would confuse 41 Sqdn as much as 1/JG3. [22A]. Henry Crawford, no doubt sighing deeply, re-painted.
The damage to Tony’s ankle from his bale-out was not serious enough to prevent him flying the next day, 6th September, when the squadron went on patrol with a full complement of 12 Spitfires in the morning.
In the afternoon of the 6th, eight aircraft went forward to Rochford - ‘Don One’ - which was a small grass airfield whose pre-war flying club buildings were now being used as a mess.
As the last German bomber attack of the day developed (five sector stations were the day’s targets) the eight Spitfires under F/Lt Norman Ryder intercepted a large number of Me.109s over the Thames estuary. It was just past six o’clock in the evening. Ryder and Mackenzie each destroyed one German fighter; Ben Bennions, two. Scott, “Mitzi” Darling and Mackenzie each claimed a probable.
Meanwhile some 15 miles north of Manston a small bunch of aircraft was spotted below at about 4000ft, and Tony (as Yellow 2) was among those who dived to investigate:
We attacked several ME 109‘s and I chose one that was flying fast. I chased him for 25 miles and gave him a four seconds burst. His left wheel came down, white fumes came out of his engine and he dived for the sea. He turned South and started climbing, so I closed in again and gave him a 7 seconds burst, whereon he blew up and spun into the sea. I returned to forward base.
From this it seems probable that the aircraft Tony destroyed was Me.109-E (3225) of 3/JG27, which came down by the Nore boom at 6.15pm after combat over the Thames estuary. The pilot, Oblt. Scheuller, was captured. [23]
Phase Three of the Battle of Britain was now over, but 41 Sqdn continued in the thick of the action as the Luftwaffe switched targets from RAF installations to London and other cities.
Sunday 15th September was a day of maximum effort for the Luftwaffe - a final softening-up before Operation Sealion, the German invasion. In mid-morning large numbers of enemy aircraft were detected by radar forming up over the French coast.
Ten Spitfires from 41 Sqdn were put up at 1140 to intercept a formation of some 30 bombers, but were jumped by the high escort of Me.109s before they could attack. Just after midday, south-east of Canterbury, Tony Lovell shot down one of the German fighters in flames; it crashed near the railway line between Adisham and Bekesbourne:
Flying as Blue 2, we broke up to attack ME 109‘s who were attacking us. I sighted my ME 109 turning east and diving. I dived after him and chased him for some 15 miles in and out of cloud. After my first burst white fumes came from his port wing rout, (sic) but he carried on. I gave him two more bursts and he caught fire and I saw him bale out and was being attended to on the ground.
Tony had opened fire from 250 yards, and had fired one burst of five seconds, and two of six seconds. The German pilot was Feldwebel Herbert Tschoppe, who had been flying arse-end charlie; he baled out and landed near woods at Adisham, where he was promptly captured by 18-year-old John Sampson and a friend who were out shooting. Tschoppe (who like many other pilots of JG53’s no.1 Staffel never carried his issue Walther PPK automatic when flying) gave up his flare pistol and was handed over to some New Zealand soldiers nearby. [24]
His aircraft was Me.109E-4 (5197) of I/JG 53 “Pik As”, which that very morning had moved to Etaples from Montreuil-Neuville; this was not Tschoppe’s usual “White 4” aircraft, with his fiancée’s name painted on, but the Gruppenadjudant’s.
Tschoppe, who had joined in October 1939, was badly burned when flames poured from his instrument panel. The fact that he had jettisoned his cockpit cover and had undone his safety straps as soon as he was hit was his salvation, for when the aircraft exploded in mid-air he was thrown out.
He did not remember consciously opening his parachute, but became aware, as he descended, that he was being circled by two Spitfires. He saw Tony Lovell salute him gravely from the cockpit; Tschoppe returned the salute, and landed in a tree. [25]
In the early afternoon 41 Sqdn were airborne again, patrolling base at 25,000ft, when they spotted a formation of 30 He.111s with an escort of “many 109’s”, and pitched in. Three miles south-west of Hornchurch Tony Lovell attacked an He.111 at 8000ft without any observable effect, but claimed an Me.109 as a probable:
We broke up to face the attacking 109’s and I peeled away and did a quarter attack on a HE 111, but saw no result. I went into a steep climbing turn and many 109’s passed me. I picked out a yellow-nosed ME 109 and attacked him from the rear. I saw much white smoke coming from him and after a few seconds, he did a violent skid and then heeled right over and went towards the clouds. He disappeared into the clouds on his back. I came down through the clouds and saw I was south of the aerodrome. He disappeared through the clouds at 1435 hours.
At the end of September 1940 Tony Lovell was promoted to acting Flight Lieutenant and given command of “B” Flight in succession to Terry Webster.
This promotion seems to have disappointed some of his fellow-pilots, who were hoping that Ben Bennions would get the job, and that Norman Ryder would be promoted to Squadron Leader after the death of S/Ldr Hood. [26] He wasn’t; instead S/Ldr R.C.L. Lister, who had won the DFC in Waziristan in ground support operations against the Fakir of Ipi, was posted to command from 7 OTU Hawarden on 8th September.
Lister baled out slightly wounded in the arm six days later, having been jumped by an Me.109 while flying tail-end charlie, and was replaced as C.O. the same day by Olympic hurdler Donald Finlay.
It seems unlikely anyway that Bennions, although older than Tony, would have been appointed over him; Tony had been commissioned in January 1938, while Ben Bennions - who had joined as a Halton apprentice in 1929 - was not commissioned until April 1940.
In the early afternoon of 30th September 41 Sqdn was patrolling the south coast at 24,000ft when Tony, flying as rear guard, spotted a formation of 20 to 30 Do.215s approaching Hastings from the south, 17,000ft below:
I informed Mitor leader, who put the Squadron into line astern and followed me down. A number of Hurricane aircraft was attacking the formation. I chose one of the rear Do.215’s and gave a short burst to kill the rear gunner, and then closed right in to 20 yards, firing the whole time. I saw bits come off the aircraft and when I was close up, I could see the riddled fuselage. The rear gunner was dead. Then there was a loud report and a cannon shell entered my starboard wing and bits entered the cockpit. I broke away and returned to base. The undercarriage was jammed, so I had to land with it up.
At 1645 hrs the following day, 1st October, the squadron was patrolling south of Canterbury at more than 30,000ft when a handful of Me.110s and some 20 escorting Me.109s were seen 500ft below. The Spitfires immediately dived to attack, Tony Lovell selecting an Me.109 as his target:
I fired all my ammunition in short bursts into it, starting at 250 yards and closing to 50 yards. At my first burst, white vapour came out from the wing roots on both sides. The 109 continued down to the cloud and home, and having no more ammunition, I flew in line astern on this aircraft and noted the following:
(a) it had a large 9 on the starboard side.
(b) its fuselage had many bullet holes in it.
(c) it had a cannon in each wing.
Incidentally, the pilot had his head as far back against the armour plating as possible.
This Me.109 (no.5814, 9+ of I/JG1) actually crashed at Chequers, Shadoxhurst, south of Ashford; the pilot, Uffz. Edward Garnith, baled out and was captured. Tony only claimed it as damaged; it was in fact destroyed, the pilot having abandoned ship. [27]
On 20th October Tony Lovell was leading 41 Sqdn on high patrol near Biggin Hill when he sighted a large formation of Me.109s, 50 or 60 strong, turning north-west to south-east 6000ft below. He ordered the squadron into line astern and dived on the rearmost formation, attacking an Me.109 at 1345hrs:
I chose one Me.109 in the rear centre and they obviously did not see me until I started firing. After two short bursts, the enemy aircraft fell into a spin and then burst into flames. I turned left and 5 Me.109’s, putting their noses down, fired at me together. Doing violent evasive action, I got away, but lost the formation. Control then ordered me to pancake.
He had fired only 600 rounds from six of his eight guns; two Brownings had failed to fire because of the cold. [28]
The aircraft destroyed by Tony Lovell may have been an Me.109E-4, no.2780 (1+ of 6/JG52) which exploded over Woolwich at 1345hrs. The pilot, Oberfw. Friedemann, fell from his plane with his parachute unopened. [29]
Ten days later, on 30th October, the squadron was involved in a high-altitude scrap with 20 Me.109s south-west of Maidstone. With his “B” Flight ordered to cover “A” Flight as they attacked, Tony saw two Me.109s climbing into the sun:
I cut across and started climbing and took a deflection shot at the leader, who half-rolled and started diving and doing turns which I found extremely hard to follow and could not get a shot in. When ten miles off Dover he flattened out in broken clouds and ice covered my windscreen, I scraped some away and gave him a burst at 300 Yds when glycol poured out of his starboard side, I then lost him in cloud.
At the beginning of November Tony was recommended for a DFC:
1. Flight Lieutenant LOVELL has flown with his Squadron in active operations against the enemy continuously since the War began. In the early days, whilst operating from his home base at CATTERICK, he destroyed 1 Ju: 88 and 1 Me:110, and later from HORNCHURCH, during the DUNKIRK operations, he, in company with another pilot, destroyed 2 He:111s. Since then he has himself destroyed a further 4 Me:109s and 1 Me:109 probably destroyed, making a personal total of 7 destroyed and 1 probably destroyed.
2. This gallant young Officer has led his Flight, and on occasion his Squadron with great courage, coolness, and determination, and his successes are the reward of hard fighting over a long period.
The recommendation carried the endorsement of the Air Officer Commanding No. 11 Group, Air Vice Marshal Park, in very similar terms. At the foot of the page is a handwritten note:
Approved. H.C.T.Dowding. A.C.M.
The award was gazetted on the 26th of the month.
The Battle of Britain as such petered out at the end of October 1940, but 41 Sqdn did not return immediately to Catterick. From Hornchurch early on 17th November they intercepted a large number of Me.109s north of Herne Bay at 25,000ft, and came down on them in line astern from the rear with a 5000ft height advantage. Tony Lovell, who was leading his “B” Flight, reported that he
got onto the tail of an Me.109 and it turned up into the sun. I gave him a burst and he turned from the sun, I then got into 100 yds and gave him a four sec. burst. Bits flew off and white smoke came out, he went on his back and started diving and turning. I closed in to give him a final burst but he half rolled and went straight into the sea.
In this engagement 41 Sqdn and 603 Sqdn between them claimed eight Me.109s destroyed, although the Luftwaffe recorded the loss of only two - both from 5/JG 54. [30, 31]
On 27th November 1940, in mid-afternoon, 41 Sqdn attacked half a dozen Me.109s flying in wide line abreast at 23,000ft over Kent. Tony, leading his “B” Flight, chose the right-hand aircraft as his target:
When I was nearly in range he turned straight into the sun, I gave him a burst to discourage him and he immediately turned from the sun, I then closed to 50 yards and finished him off by means of a dead astern attack. He crashed into the ground somewhere near Tonbridge. I did not see him bale out. [32]
On 13th December Tony went on seven days’ leave.
It had been a long, hard year, culminating in Tony Lovell getting his foot firmly on the bottom rung of the command ladder when he was just 21. How did the others rate him as a leader?
F/Lt (later Group Captain) Norman Ryder, when he led 41 Sqdn in combat in September 1940,
made it a rule that the newest or weakest pilot flew as wingman to myself, or Tony Lovell if in ‘B’ Flight. We could both do our jobs and look after the new boy....[33]
Tony’s deputy flight commander, Dennis Adams, has referred to his “press-on attitude” - a description also applied to Tony’s brother Stuart by W/Cdr “Poppa” Ambrose. Adams however had few chances of leading “B” Flight; Tony, he complained, never seemed to take a day off. He was, thought Adams (who was a couple of years older), a good flight commander, and enthusiastic in everything he did:
“We had been scrambled and I was doing A.E.Charlie but not in the normal sense lagging way behind the squadron (Don Finlay and Tony and myself worked it out that to save fuel and protect the squadron better from being bounced, have one a/c app. 1000ft over the squadron, not weaving behind at about the same height).
“We had tried it before and it worked like a charm, so this scramble I was A.E.C. again. At about 30,000ft I was in position at about 31,000 when I spotted some 109s above so gave the warning, and as I did so the jokers decided they had 41 Sqdn just right. So again I called and told the boys that the 109s were attacking.
“I had a grandstand view of all this as for some unknown reason these types either didn’t see me or ignored me. They got quite a shock. The boys were ready for them. In a matter of seconds I saw 3 109s going down, and not being involved I had plenty of fuel, so decided to find one for myself so headed off in the direction of Dover and spotted two going like the clappers for home....”
Dennis Adams attacked the rearmost of the two from beneath, and it went into the sea off Dover harbour. Dusk was falling as he landed back at Hornchurch, and as he switched off at dispersal, Tony Lovell came running up: “Did you get one?”
Replied Adams: “If you can get confirmation from the Navy or the balloon types at Dover, the answer is yes.”
“Tony dashed back to the crew room and when I got there he was talking to the ops room.... When he had finished I said What’s this all about, Tony? He seemed very excited. Before he could answer the phone rang and Tony grabbed it, and then let out what could only be described as a whoop.
“He put the phone down and said that’s your confirmation and it makes the squadron’s 100th. On the strength we got a stand-down until midday and an almighty party developed that evening...” [34]
Tony was not a great party-goer, but he was prepared to join in. Gilbert Draper remembered his sense of humour from 41 Sqdn days, saying that Tony did occasionally join in the pilots’ youthful escapades:
We went up to the Paradise Club, just off Piccadilly, in the dispersal van, and he was quite a lad then.... He was a jolly nice chap, extremely good-looking, not one of the booze-and-Brylcreem boys but not goody-goody; quiet, and introverted..... I always thought he was a very proper type.... [35]
Wilfred Duncan Smith, later to achieve fame in Malta as the pilot who was challenged by a sentry while nude bathing with a female companion, found Tony Lovell as a man very remote and difficult to get close to, although superficially at ease:
I came into the mess at Hornchurch as a Pilot Officer when I felt this hand on my shoulder, and a voice said “What’ll you have?” It was Tony. “Thank you, Sir”, I said, to which he replied: “Don’t call me sir, I’m only a poor bloody Flight Lieutenant”. [36]
Dr Robert Carr-Lewty, then a sergeant pilot on 41 Sqdn, would have liked to have known Tony better:
“A very pleasant young fellow with whom I could have had a very good friendship but for the idiotic rank taboo....The gulf was great in those days and there was no socialising between Officers and other ranks...” . [37]
Roy Ford, who can be seen far right in the well-known photo of the six Battle of Britain pilots of 41 Sqdn in flying gear at Hornchurch, c. November 1940, was an RAFVR sergeant pilot, and played bridge on a regular basis with the officer pilots (“Very nice chaps, but lousy bridge players”).
He firmly resisted the suggestion that the squadron was in any way divided on commissioned/non-commissioned, or on any other, lines:
“Indeed, quite the reverse proved to be the case.... When joining the Squadron in December 1939, I fully expected and received the usual disciplines, but these were not overly burdensome and certainly did not prevent the development of mutual respect and, in some cases, lasting friendships with fellow pilots....
“The only really important difference between commissioned and non-commissioned in my book was evidenced by the fact that each ate and slept in separate Messes. The Officers’ Mess was infinitely preferable!
“Apart from this, all commissioned, hearties, non-commissioned, aesthetes, regulars and temporary gentlemen acted, of necessity, as a tightly-knit team, in the air and/or on the ground, encouraged by the knowledge that failure to meet minimum standards was to invite a premature harp lesson or a posting to less urgent duties.
“Personally, the war proved to me that all men were born equal but some, like Tony Lovell, Norman Ryder and Alan Deere in particular, were more equal than others...” [38]
Nevertheless it does seem that many officers on 41 Sqdn did live in a slightly different world, and not all of them - not even, as we shall see, Tony Lovell - accepted the new sergeant pilots as Roy Ford did (one officer’s reminiscences never attributed any bêtise to a fellow-officer - only ever to sergeant pilots).
Bam Bamberger, who went from 610 Sqdn to 41 Sqdn as a sergeant pilot in September 1940, obviously felt uncomfortable at Hornchurch. Although he has referred to 41 Sqdn as altogether more professional and battle-hardened, to his mind there were still deficiencies, and the divisions within the squadron seemed just as sharp as in 610:
“The senior officers were like gods.... there was also a hard core of regular sergeant pilots, and even they thought they were above the likes of me. 41 was full of professionals; it was a bit of an insult to have replacements like me with no experience landed on them...
If after a sortie an aircraft had to be taxied into maintenance, a sergeant would have to do the job, even if he’d flown four times that day and there were officers available who’d been sitting around all day...
There was always an air of unreality both in the air and on the ground. After one sortie I was shouted at and told off for coming indoors with my boots on. The fact that we were at war hadn’t really got through to everyone....”
He was happy to volunteer for service in Malta; the C.O. did nothing to prevent him going. Somewhat bitterly, Bamberger said later:
“I got a DFC and bar for what I did in the Mediterranean in 1943-44. On that basis, I should have had a Victoria Cross for what I went through in the Battle of Britain and then in Malta.” 39
Tony’s rigger at Catterick, Jim Maggs, has provided a ground-crew-view of a man he felt privileged to have known and served with:
“After about eight weeks or so I was allocated to B flight and joined a group who looked after three aircraft, Q,H and L. And so I was introduced to P/O Tony Lovell. His first question was ‘And how old are you?’ ‘Eighteen, Sir,’ I replied. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘listen to Tom, he will keep you right.’
“Tom Warburton, who was a Canadian in his forties, said ‘Do your job right and you will find Mr Lovell a real Gent’, a fact I was never able to deny.”
On discovering that Maggs came from nearby Middlesborough, Tony offered him a trip over the town in the Magister:
“The next time we were stood down he arranged a trip, and after signing a blood chit we took off for Teeside. He flew under some pylons on the way there and did a couple of low passes over my home, bringing my mother out to see what was going on. I flew with him three or four times, and twice we flew under pylons....”
As a boss, he was perceived as firm but fair: a professional, but human: [40]
“He always liked his a/c on top line and was quick to tell you if he thought it was not.... When we were alone he would call me by my Christian name, if others were around it was Maggs. I had no difficulty in calling him Sir, as I think I have said, that he was a Gent.
“I don’t think he smoked himself but often commented that he liked the smell of my pipe. Sometimes he would walk to dispersal with a dog but I believe it belonged to some other pilot. He did not have a car to my knowledge, but cycled quite often to the dispersal.
“I got the impression he read a lot and was keen on swimming, but without a doubt he loved flying and was not afraid to break a few rules". [41] "At the same time he always appeared to be in complete control.”
NOTES TO 1940
1. Operations Record Book quoted by G/Capt. H.T. Sutton in "After the Battle" (ed. Ramsey).
2. "Nine Lives" (Air Commodore A.C. Deere OBE DSO DFC*). Al Deere trained with Tony Lovell at Netheravon in 1937, and although never great friends, they went on to become "friendly disposed" to one another. Deere remembered Tony as "a quiet earnest sort of chap much liked, rather than admired, by his contemporaries. He tended perhaps to be a bit reclusive but at the time we were both very young and our personalities changed as we matured.....Tony was certainly popular with his fellow pilots in 41 Sqn one of whom, a great friend of mine and fellow New Zealander, was always singing his praises as a pilot. John Mackenzie was the person in question..... Tony's Flight Commander in 41 Squadron was one Norman Ryder who, I know, thought of Tony as one of his bright boys." (Deere, pers. comm). Norman Ryder was actually commander of "A" Flight when Tony commanded "B" Flight.
3. AVM H.A.C. Bird-Wilson in "Scramble to Victory" (Norman Franks).
4. Tony Lovell's scrapbook, and his awards and medals, were sold away from Ampleforth College - where they went after his mother's death - by his sister Clare Pearce. They were last heard of in the possession of Cardiff estate agent Chris John, who acquired them from Pat Swannell of British Columbia. For gun camera photos, see photos.
5. "'Lulu' Lovell, having run out of ammunition, chased and harrassed a Junkers 88 bomber so closely, at very low level, that, in taking violent evasive action, the 88 touched a wing on the beach, cartwheeled and blew up. I was close on Lulu's tail with ammo left to back him up, but one must admit that to have a deadly Spitfire right up one's bum at 50 yards, ammo or no ammo, had to be a shattering experience." Flying Made My Arms Ache (op.cit.). Tony appears not to have claimed for this Ju.88; and the same story is told of his CO, S/Ldr 'Robin' Hood, in Men of the Battle of Britain (Wynn).
6. W/Cdr Thomas (Ginger) Neil, pers. comm. The aircraft was Ju.88 no. 5J+AT of 9/KG4, which came down at Hornsea near Bridlington (Luftwaffe over the North, Bill Norman 1997).
7. "Spitfire" by Jeffrey Quill.
8. S/Ldr Frank Usmar to Pat Swannell.
9. Frank Usmar, pers. comm.
10. Ibid.
11. PRO AIR 50/18.
11a. Thanks to Steve Brew for supplying copy.
12. Any Ju.88s were presumably from KG30, which lost a number of aircraft on a mission to attack Driffield ("The Battle of Britain then and Now", op.cit). See also Luftwaffe over the North (Bill Norman, 1997) - where no Ju.88s are attributed to no.41 Sqdn on 15th August 1940 - for details of the Bennions / Shipman Me.110.
13. PRO, AIR50/18.
14. Tony's armourer could well have been put on a charge for this defect, which was caused while "breeching up" the .303 Browning when reassembling the gun. The distance between the barrel and the breech block had to be correctly adjusted; if the gap was too great [and it was not an item that could be checked easily] then too much cartridge case was left outside the barrel, and it blew apart when fired, stopping the gun. Better training of armourers, and more experience, made this a rare occurrence by the Battle of Britain. (Copy of combat report from Steve Brew).
15. Tony's will must have been found among his Aunt Kitty's papers at her death, and been entered to probate then. It is now on file in Belfast.
16. Tony Lovell came down in a field near Jotman’s Farm. The Spitfire broke up in the middle of the unmade road, outside no.18; the engine landed up on waste ground between two bungalows, one of which had a roof fire caused by burning oil. Exploding ammunition added to the fun as various small boys made off with souvenirs - in one case, most of a Browning machine-gun (various eye-witnesses, summer 1997).
17. Trevor Williams of Wickford, Essex; pers. comm.
18. Jeffrey Quill, pers. comm.
19. The Operations Record Book of 41 Squadron at this time is one of the more boring ones; and in the earlier months of 1939 is positively particularly non-informative.
20. The reticence of Wally Wallens can be put down to his disinclination to point a finger at any particular pilot as having collided with Terry Webster.
21. See Appendix 3 for eyewitness accounts of the battle over Benfleet.
22. Details from various eye-witnesses (1997). Tony Lovell put in no combat report for this engagement, but some eye-witnesses say that he came under fire and descended “in a spiral” (Adolf Galland reported the same phenomenon of a Hurricane he shot down: “I saw the dead pilot sitting in his shattered cockpit, while his aircraft spiralled slowly to the ground as though piloted by a ghostly hand”). Tony told one bystander that he had locked his controls before baling out in the hope that his aircraft would hit elm trees alongside the main road rather than the bungalows of South Benfleet. For the full eyewitness accounts see Appendix 3.
22A. “When Lovell returned to the airfield after being shot down for the second time, I met him on the tarmac. He commented that he was wearing his lucky trousers but that they had now acquired a tear near one of the knees. Lovell was determined to exact revenge upon the squadron that shot him down and told me to paint the nose of his aircraft yellow to match theirs. However, prior to completing the task, he asked me to paint it back to the original colour again, as the Squadron Commander had told him that he thought it would not only put himself at risk, but may also confuse other members of the Squadron in combat.” [968472 LAC Henry Crawford via his son Ian, to Steve Brew].
23. "The Battle of Britain Then and Now", op.cit.
24. John Sampson DFC* to Pat Swannell.
25. For Herbert Tschoppe's story, refer to "Brothers in Arms" by S/Ldr Chris Goss (Crecy Books 1994). Tschoppe married his fiancée Anneliese by proxy in 1941.
26. S/Ldr Frank Usmar, in "RAF Squadrons in the Battle of Britain", (op.cit).
27. "The Battle of Britain Then and Now", (op.cit.). The engine of this aircraft was recovered by enthusiasts and was put on display in a local air museum.
UPDATE: Following from Peter Cornwell, 2013: Quote. “ 1./JG51 Messerschmitt Bf109E-4 (5814). Engine caught fire under attack by F/O A.D.J. Lovell of No.41 Squadron during escort sortie over Ashford and abandoned over ‘Chequers’, Church Lane, Shadoxhurst, 4.50 p.m. FF Uffz Eduard Garneth baled out and captured unhurt on landing near Hengherst. Aircraft White 9 + 100% write-off. “
“ Shattered Daimler-Benz DB 601 engine recovered by the Lashenden Air Warfare Museum which presented part to the pilot’s widow. Site subsequently investigated by members of the Wealden Aviation Archaeological Group who discovered engine badge, now held by Andy Saunders. ” Unquote. From RAF Commands website in response to query from Steve Brew.
28. The most usual cause of guns freezing up was the armourer failing to dilute his oil with paraffin.
29. "The Battle of Britain Then and Now".
30. S/Ldr Chris Goss, pers. comm.
31. Recent research has shown that no.41 Sqdn was the third most successful squadron in the Battle of Britain, with a credited score of 45.33 enemy aircraft as against 89.5 claimed. In engagements over 30 days (the fourth highest number of days) , it lost 32 aircraft. Ahead of the squadron were 603 (57.8, 32 days) and 609 (48 in 21 days). Only 92, 501 and 603 had more days engaged.
32. "Eight aircraft claimed by 41, 66 and 74 Sqn (Lovell is said to have shared his kill with Sgt J McAdam and this ac crashed 8 miles S of Dungeness??). The Luftwaffe lost 6 Bf 109s - 3 each from 2 & 3/JG 51." (S/Ldr Chris Goss, pers. comm). But NB that ADJL was specific that his Me.109 went into the ground near Tonbridge.
33. Anthony Robinson op. cit.
34. Dennis Adams to Pat Swannell.
35. Gilbert Draper (pers. comm).
36. G/Capt. W. Duncan Smith, pers. comm.
37. Dr Robert Carr-Lewty to Pat Swannell.
38. Roy Ford (pers. comm). It was Roy Ford who, having accidentally put north Yorkshire's electricity supply out for 24 hours, agreed - on advice - to accept the CO's verdict. Marched swiftly and smartly into S/Ldr Hood's office, and having crisply saluted, he got a severe reprimand and 48 hours as Duty Pilot.
39. "Churchill's Few", John Willis, Michael Joseph 1985.
40. Deputy controller Sgt Len Hall felt that the humanity disappeared while Tony was on duty (pers. comm.).
41. Such as flying under pylons.
