It was a warm summer's day in June 1940 birds were in song and bees and butterflies were fluttering around peacefully. Little did they know, there was a war on and Mr Charles 'Charlie' Xiphias was in the middle of it! Although it may not seem like it, as he was sitting in his flight suit on a deck chair reading a newspaper and having a laugh with his squadron members. He was in 238 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, he had finished training only a week ago and has not yet seen active combat, he was part of the red section led by
The C.O Jhon 'handle bar' Smith (he had a very magnificent handlebar moustache) and like the rest of red section, he was sitting around itching for combat, he kept glancing at his hurricane fighter, longing to bring down an aircraft with her. It seemed as if hours had passed, decades even, but finally at 12:52pm the phone in the old flight clubhouse (many RAF bases in ww2 were converted flight clubs) rang it was immidietly picked up following by a yes and an OK from one of the officers, Charlie looked towards the window of the small wooden hut fingers crossed anticipating combat. And it seems crossing your fingers is unlucky because combat is what he got... The officer in the hut yelled "SQUADRON SCRAMBLE! SCRAMBLE SCRAMBLE SCRAMBLE!" And rang the giant bell in the room next to him so everyone could hear. Suddenly the peaceful areodrome jumped into life the pilots leaped to their feet legging it to their aeroplanes. Mechanics drove starter cars as fast as they could and started to prime the merlin engined hurricanes for takeoff. Charlie was one of the first to get to his hurricane, he clumsily clambered on the wing and got into the cramped cockpit, pre flight checks were minor in a time when speed is key, he checked the controll surfaces first, and then the oil pressure,fuel and the altimeter. Once he was ready and strapped into his seat he held down the magneto primer shouting 'contact!' The V12 Merlin started violently shaking the small and light hurricane, once Charlie had decided everything was working fine he shouted 'chocks!' And the mechanics removed the chocks holding the plane in place. He throttled up and used the rudder to align himself with his flight (groups are referred as flights in the RAF) as they taxied out Charlie started wondering if this was to be the last time he saw his precious England... With its rolling green hills and burbling brooks... But this was not a time for thinking about that, as his daydream was interrupted by the flight leader handlebar accelerating. Just five minuets and 39 seconds had passed since the word came through to scramble, and the tail wheels of the Hurricanes were allready lifting, after takeoff, the flight of RAF planes were guided to position using radar (British were only country to have radar at the start of ww2) Angels 9 Angels(9000ft) 35° East and to me that heading untill they spotted a flight of German planes at around Angels 6 (6000ft)
After what seemed an eternity, the German aircraft were spotted,
5 stuka dive bombers and 3 mesechmit bf109 fighter escorts. The British hurricanes moved into position, it was agreed that they dive and take out the fighters first, so that is what they did, Charlie sat in his cockpit, finger over gun button as handlebar ordered to dive,
Charlie pulled the stick to the left and then pushed it forwards and began diving on the German planes at 300 yards Charlie put a burst of 303' into the lead Messerschmitt, he was lucky and managed to land a shot through the top of the canopy, and into the pilot who rolled his plane over and span out of controll, either dead or badly wounded. Charlie pulled up from his dive and just there and then the sound he dreaded came to reality, pft pft pft pft pft of torn fabric as the second Messerchmitt fired at his plane, his main cannon narrowly missing, whilst Charlie was scared he was alive, and handlebar was taking care of the Messerchmitt Charlie thenpulled the plane around and dived after one of the fleeing German stukas he fired a long burst into it and it burst into flames but.... Charlie's hurricane had been hit... Boiling water was spewing out into his cockpit burning him, his radiator was hit and that means losing glycol, potentially fatal to the engine and leaving a nice trail of white smoke in the air, but unfortunately Charlie had not been told this when training, so he carried on fighting as the boiling water leakage had stopped. Suddenly sparks flew off the inside of his cockpit glass shattered and a pain tore through his arm and shoulder, he had been hit... Bleeding and with a cockpit so badly damaged you couldn't tell it was a cockpit, charlie rolled the plane and looped over hoping to get behind his attacker but no, the German pilot he was fighting was an ace, and a good pilot, he was behind him and then a giant slam hit his plane and the wings and rear fuselage ripped up Charlie thought this was the end his controls stopped working and there was a bulge in his seat from where the 20 mm cannon shell hit the armoured bulkhead behind the pilot, the German ace continued to fire at him and engulfed the front fuel tank in flames, Charlie reacted immidietly by upending the canopy undoing his seat and preparing to bail, he braced himself grabbed his parachute release chord and jumped, he was spinning and felt extremely ill untill he pulled the chord, the German plane flew past and victory rolled, Charlie bewildered by the experience looked sheepishly around, this wasn't England he was landing in..... It must be France! He must have flown away from his flight in the panic! He wished he had never crossed his fingers now... Arm seared with pain, burns stung and glass cuts throbbed... It was at this point, Charlie asked himself, 'why didn't I join the Royal Navy?'