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Spitfire Pilot
Flying Through
Ashes
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Bringing up the rear!!!
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The next part of my story.
OK, here is the next part of my story
The farmer carefully helped me to my feet. “Are you alright?” he asked, sounding very concerned. “Yes Sir”, I replied, “I hit my head and my left arm in the crash but I think I’m OK”.
“Well”, he said, “let’s get you into the house and check you over. My daughter is a nurse with the Army and she’s home on leave this week, so you’re in luck aren’t you?”
“Apparently so”, I said, perhaps rather rudely. The farmer just laughed and helped me to walk back to the farmhouse to get some medical attention and a nice warm cup of tea.
As we entered the farmhouse, the farmer’s wife stood in the kitchen looking very pale. She had just boiled the kettle on the stove to make some tea and offered me a cup, as well as a rather delicious piece of homemade cake.
She smiled as I wasted no time in eating it. “Would you like another piece?” she asked kindly. “No thank you”, I replied, “I wouldn’t want to appear greedy although it was quite splendid”.
We sat there talking for a while until the farmers daughter returned from the local village where she had picked up some bread and some vegetables for their dinner. “Oh my”, she said as she saw me sat at the table, “I didn’t realise that we had company”.
“Oh Rose”, said the farmer’s wife, “this is Flight Lieutenant Bufton. He crashed landed in one of our potato fields and has hurt his head. You wouldn’t be a dear and take a look at it would you?”
“Yes, of course”, said Rose, carefully placing the shopping bags down on the table. “I’ll just go and get my bag and I’ll take a look at you Sir”. She smiled at me and her eyes seemed to sparkle. I have to say that she was a very attractive young woman.
She was very slim and had bright blonde hair and wore bright red lipstick. Her hands were soft and her touch almost undetectable as she carefully patched me up ready to fight another day.
“There we go, Sir”, she said calmly, “that should keep you in one piece for a while”. She smiled again. There was something about that smile that was almost magical. I could sit and look at her smile all day. It was like entering a trance. Time stood still and the world seemed to no longer exist.
She gave me a ride to the local train station that afternoon to catch the 3:20 train back to the airfield. “Good luck Sir”, she said, as the train pulled into the station, “make sure you write to me and let me know how you are getting on, won’t you”.
“I will”, I said, “but only if you will do the same”. “Of course”, she relied, softly. I turned and boarded the train. She smiled and waved as the train pulled out of the station. “Thank you for your help” I shouted, trying in vain to make more noise than the train and as I sat down in my seat I knew that everything would be alright. There really would be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover (only maybe it would take a bit longer than 12 hours).
After a long and tiring train journey and very nearly falling asleep and missing my stop, I finally made it back to the airfield. I wasted no time in reporting to Herby and letting him know I was alright. Fortunately I was just in time to stop myself from being reported Missing in Action.
“Good to see you alive and well Flight Lieutenant”, said Herby warmly. “Thank you Sir”, I replied. He suddenly started to look rather solemn.
“You know that Flight Lieutenant Matthews was killed this morning don’t you”, he said, “I know that you and he were quite good friends”. “Yes Sir”, I replied, “I mean, I saw him go down but I thought that he would have bailed out. Surely he would have bailed out. He’s been through worse and still got out of it in one piece”.
“Yes he has”, replied the Wing Co, “and he did manage to bail out”. I just stared at Herby and didn’t say a word. “He drowned in the Channel”, said Herby, “He was held under by the weight of his parachute. A group of fishermen recovered his body this afternoon”.
I just stared at him in disbelief. I couldn’t quite grasp the fact that Richard was dead. He was, in my opinion, one of our best pilots. I would have flown anywhere with him by my side. I trusted him with my life. How could he be dead?
“I’m afraid that Pilot Officer McDonald was also killed”, said Herby, “he crash landed on a beach not far from Dover and was burned pretty extensively. He never made it out. Pilot Officer Smith was quite badly wounded but he’s going to be alright and Flying Officer Williams is missing”.
Again, I just stared blankly at him. “We are expecting some new replacements within the hour”, said Herby, “I would appreciate it if you would kindly show them to their accommodation. We have already had their Spitfires delivered”. “Yes Sir”, I replied, “Is that all Sir. It’s just that I want to see how the other pilots are”. “Certainly”, he said. I stood to attention and saluted him before marching out of the room.
The other pilots were all in the Officers Mess. There was a huge cheer as I walked into the room. One of them shouted “Bloody hell Sir. We thought you were busy learning to swim”.
“No chance”, I replied, “I already know how to swim”. They all got up and greeted me one by one with a friendly handshake. “You heard about the others Sir”, one of them asked
“Yes, the Wing Co just told me”, I replied, “Jolly bad show”.
“Let me get you a drink Sir”, said Peter. “Thank you”, I replied, “that would be very nice”. “I didn’t mean that I would pay for it”, he exclaimed, with a cheeky grin on his face, “I’m only joking Sir, of course I’ll buy you one”.
“I should think so too”, said Colin, one of the other pilots, “especially after he bought you seven last night”. Everyone thought this comment was highly amusing but not nearly as amusing as when I told them how I was caught off-guard by this German fellow and injured in the ensuing crash-landing, and, of course, when I told them about Rose.
“And you came back here, when you could have spent at least a few more hours with her”, cried Peter, looking rather pale in the face, “you bloody idiot”. “Hey”, I said, with a grin on my face, “I’m not going to be charged with desertion for anyone, no matter how good looking she may happen to be”.
“Have it your way”, he said, jokingly. Suddenly, a rather exhausted and out of breath Flight Sergeant appeared at the doorway and called out a single word, “Scramble”. Almost instantly, the air-raid sirens started screaming into the evening sky, almost deafening anyone unlucky enough to be standing near any of them. Once again, the whole airfield transformed into what can only be described as chaos.
Unfortunately for us, the Germans had launched a surprise raid on our airfields and had managed to sneak within one mile of the coast un-detected. By the time that the message to scramble had reached us the Germans were already bombing our airfield and we started to run through a hail of bullets and shrapnel to reach our spitfires, many of which were already quite badly damaged.
I somehow managed to reach my new spitfire, although quite how I managed it I’ll probably never know. I just jumped in and started my engine and as soon as the propeller started turning I thrust the throttle lever forward and flew down the runway before finally making it into the air.
Immediately, I could see three Junkers JU87 Stuka dive-bombers behind me and closing in fast. They immediately started firing at me and I had to try very hard to avoid as much fire as I could, although several rounds hit my fuselage and wings.
Through a combination of twists, turns and rolls I managed to out manoeuvre all three and saw one in my sights. I waited until his aircraft filled my canopy and then let out one almighty hail of gunfire. He went straight into a nosedive and crashed into the ground.
Then I heard Colin’s voice on the radio. He had just shot down one of the others. I could see the other one flying away from me about half a mile off my starboard wing. I chased him and also shot him out of the sky. They were the only three Stukas we saw that day. The others had all left before we had got airborne.
We also saw one ME109 and chased him off before we started to run low on fuel and had to turn back to the airfield. It was quite a challenge landing the spitfires on the badly damaged runway but somehow we managed to get back in one piece.
Nothing could ever have prepared us for the sight that we saw when we did arrive back. I can remember finding a shoe that belonged to a female WAAF. Her foot was still inside it.
The biggest piece of Peter that we could find was his torso and a badly burned face with bits of flesh hanging from it. We only knew it was him because he was wearing his dog tags. I’ll never forget that sight. That will haunt me until the day I die.
Three pilots made it that day. There were only two spitfires that were in any shape to takeoff, mine and Colin’s. The other pilot, Frank, had to take cover behind the wreckage of his spitfire until the raid was over. He was shot in the leg by one of the Stukas and spent the next few weeks in a field hospital.
Herby was also killed. He had tried to help one of the injured ground crew and both of them were shot to pieces by the rear gunner of one of the Stukas.
I remember one of the ground crew came up to me and told me that I was very lucky to be alive. I didn’t say anything. Looking back on it now, I realise that the lucky ones are those who were scattered all over the ground. They didn’t have to see what I saw.
Post Edited By Spitfire Pilot, Feb/13/2007, 11:28 am
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"The trouble with artists such as myself is that all too many can see the world for the beautiful place that it should be but we cannot see ourselves for who we truly are".
- Mark A Bufton, 17 March 2009
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Feb/13/2007, 11:25 am
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Spitfire Pilot
Flying Through
Ashes
Registered:
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Bringing up the rear!!!
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And a little bit more!!!!
The replacement pilots showed up shortly afterwards. “Talk about a baptism of fire”, one of them said to me, “where do we report, Sir”. I just looked at them. “Well”, I said after a while, “It looks like you are reporting to me. Wing Commander Watkins is spread all over this parade square, along with most of our pilots”.
“Unfortunately, your spitfires were destroyed in the raid”, I said, “We have already ordered more aircraft and some new pilots to fly them so if you’ll follow me I’ll show you to your accommodation, or what’s left of it”.
“Yes, Sir”, they all replied and followed me towards the accommodation block. The fear showed on their faces as they saw the results of evening’s action. The smell of burnt flesh still lingered in the air like a cloud of death suffocating everyone within its path.
“Right”, I said once we had arrived, “if you get yourselves settled in and then report one at a time to my office”. “Yes, Sir”, they all replied simultaneously and with military precision. “Good”, I said, and left the room.
I walked over to my new office, in other words, Herby’s old office. “He wasn’t going to need it any more after all and I was the squadron’s senior officer so I was now in charge of my squadron. Not that there was really a squadron to be in charge of.
I was promoted to Squadron Leader and awarded a bar for my DFC for my actions that day. All the pilots in the squadron treated me like a hero but I didn’t see myself like that. I was just one of the two that made it into the air and shot down two Stukas. I also became the Squadrons official Commanding Officer although I chose to continue flying.
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"The trouble with artists such as myself is that all too many can see the world for the beautiful place that it should be but we cannot see ourselves for who we truly are".
- Mark A Bufton, 17 March 2009
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Feb/13/2007, 1:34 pm
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Spitfire Pilot
Flying Through
Ashes
Registered:
12-2005
Location:
Bringing up the rear!!!
Posts:
969
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Re: Mark's Story (Development & Comments) - One of the few (18+)
OK so here's the next little bit to be getting on with  LOL 
We didn’t see much action over the next several days. There were a couple of sorties but I guess the Germans thought they had pretty much destroyed our airfield but whatever the reason for it we certainly needed the rest.
We spent the first few days re-organising everything and getting our numbers back up. We even had to pinch a few pilots from RAF Bomber Command we were that short of them.
We then spent a few days training the new pilots to fly their spitfires into combat. In those days there was no combat training as such. You flew a Tiger Moth mostly in order to get your wings and then you were posted to a squadron. The only combat training you had was the real thing. If you failed, you usually didn’t get a second chance.
After those few days of vital training the call to scramble came once again and we went up to meet the threat head on. The Luftwaffe was carrying out a raid on shipping in the channel and we had to go and protect those ships.
We managed to get there just before the Germans arrived and ahead of us we could see fairly large formations of JU87 Stukas and Do17s. We went head to head with them and immediately peeled off one by one to attack them. We couldn’t see any fighters though. Perhaps the Jerries thought that they wouldn’t need them.
I saw two JU87s in front of me and went in for the kill. The tail gunners were both firing at me like mad as I opened up on them. One of them caught fire and went down but I had to come around again to finish the other one off. I found it very hard to believe that there was no fighter escort for these chaps. The JU87’s were sitting ducks without them.
A DO17 then came around on my tail, the gunners firing at me from all angles so I put my spitfire into a tight right hand turn and managed to get away from him. Then I heard a message over the radio. “Fighter! On my tail...I need...” Then there was silence. A round from the ME109 had gone through the side of his canopy and he was killed before he could say anything else.
A huge formation of maybe 30 fighters had made its way to our location and we were now at the mercy of the German pilots. I looked over my shoulder to see that two ME109s were coming in fast, firing at me like crazy.
I pulled up and performed a barrel roll and they flew straight past me. Then I opened up on one of them. He pushed forward on his control column and went into a sharp dive so I rolled over the top and followed him down. When I had him in my sights I fired at him but barely hit a thing.
We had both had to pull up really hard to avoid crashing into the drink and he turned sharply left. I needed to do something to stop him from leading me into an ambush. I hadn’t the faintest idea where his wingman was so I rolled to the right and pulled up to come back around on his tail and opened fire.
I hit his port side wing several times and when he tried to go into another tight turn and escape, his wing simply couldn’t take the strain and sheered off, plunging him into the channel.
Then I heard another message over the radio. “This is red five...they’re all over me...I need some help up here!” It was one of the pilots we had ‘borrowed’ off Bomber Command and he had three ME109’s behind him and his spitfire was in pretty bad shape.
“Hold on red five”, I said, “I’m on my way”. He was just above me at 11 o’clock and was heading away from me.
“Red five, I’m coming up on your six, bring them around towards me and I’ll go head to head with them”.
“Roger Red Leader, turning now”.
He turned right 180° and brought them right over top of me. As he did this I fired at them from underneath and one of them went down. I then turned around to try and chase the other two.
“Red five, try to slow them down” I said, over the radio and he started twisting and turning all over the sky trying to buy some time for me to get to him. I eventually managed to get behind them and so did one of the other pilots in my squadron. We both started firing at the two Germans but then there was silence from my guns.
“This is Red Leader. I’ve run out of ammunition. I’m going to try and scare them off red five” and I continued to follow the two ME109’s while George, the other pilot, continued to fire at them.
One of the Germans must have panicked and disengaged. I followed him and stayed on his tail until he decided that it was best to make his escape while he still could. He broke away and that was the last I saw of him.
Only nine of our spitfires came back from that sortie. Red five was not one of them. He crashed on his way back to the airfield when his engine finally cut out. He was too low to bail out so he had to try and save it. He wasn’t successful.
That’s how it was for the next few weeks, just endless fighting. It seemed as though as soon as you landed you were re-fuelled, re-armed and you were back up there again. The lack of sleep was starting to get to me and I was making silly little mistakes and forgot the really simple things that I had learned which almost cost me dearly several times.
It all came to a climax shortly afterwards though when one of my pilots got killed because of one of my mistakes. We were flying a patrol over the north coast of France and we were ambushed by about 5 enemy fighters. He was fairly inexperienced and he panicked and asked me what to do. Let’s just say that I believe I gave him the wrong advice. Poor sod hardly knew what had hit him and I was shot up pretty bad. Only just managed to make it back to the airfield without dying.
It started getting to the point that I was literally waking up in the ****pit about to take off and almost fell asleep again in the middle of a dogfight. I knew I was getting weaker but I still had a job to do. I knew that no matter how tired or under-pressure I was that I had to continue. My pilots needed me to be there. I couldn’t just desert them, could I?
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"The trouble with artists such as myself is that all too many can see the world for the beautiful place that it should be but we cannot see ourselves for who we truly are".
- Mark A Bufton, 17 March 2009
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Apr/2/2007, 1:48 pm
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