Fighter Boys

"Bandits 5 o'clock!","Tally Ho chaps!","Rat-a-tat-tat!", "Eat lead, squarehead!","I think I got him, skipper!". Let's be quite honest about this. There's an eternal schoolboy in most of us (males, British, born within ten years of the end of the war) for whom dog-fights and vapour trails over the skies of Kent are utterly irresistible. It's not something we would readily admit to in sophisticated company, but hang sophistication, you'd need to be a particularly earth-bound soul for your heart not to be lifted by the soaring romance of the "Brylcreem Boys" in their Spitfires and Hurricanes. But my reversion to pre-adolescent type was triggered by pure accident (is there such a thing?) Let me explain...

Wandering the streets of Brussels one day, waiting for my car to be fixed, I came across the "Librairie de l'Escadron". Fronted by a profoundly banal newsagents, the back-room into which I was ushered by the conspiratorial owner was a veritable cornucopia of unacknowledgable delights. "Krigsporno" my brother calls it, using the impact-laden Danish expression. "War-porn" I suppose in English. Wall upon wall, row upon row of shelving was stacked high with books of military history. Even the gangways were virtually barricaded with sandbag piles of regimental memoirs and accounts of long-forgotten campaigns. There were whole redoubts of WWII literature including detailed monographs on uniforms, equipment and hardware etc. Each book was discretely wrapped in an individual transparent wrapper presumably to discourage obsessive drooling over some of the more uninhibited material. Clearing my throat rather awkwardly, I asked if I might be allowed to "bouqiner" - just poke around the shelves. With a knowing look I was left to my own devices. 15-20 minutes later I presented myself at the counter shyly proferring a copy of "The Eastern Front 1914-1918 - Suicide of the Empires" by Alan Clark. Pretty hard core really - a grisly, detailed account of the pointless slaughter of millions. Perfect! He's not really a likeable man, but Alan Clark the historian is irresistible. Energetic, yet elegant use of language, a firm grasp of the political issues, a clear understanding of military practicalities, eminently readable - I batted the whole thing off in the course of a quiet afternoon at work.

A couple of weeks later, again on some skimpy automotive pretext, I found myself ineluctably drawn back to the Librairie de l'Escadron. Having spent a good half hour poring over the shelves, I was too embarrassed not to buy something. I finally emerged clutching a copy of Patrick Bishop's "Fighter Boys - Saving Britain 1940". I raised a superior eyebrow at the blurb. "Unputdownable" was the considered view of Alistair Horne. But he was right. I was through it in a flash and regretted finishing. And not just because of the time-honoured combat clichés so beloved of afficionados of Commando Magazine and War Picture Library. The book does of course contain many gripping eyewitness accounts of aerial warfare, but the real achievement of "Fighter Boys" is the intelligent and sympathetic insight it gives us into the human reality of Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. My father flew with the RAF during the war (although not in fighters). Britain's "Finest Hour" and the universe of ethical and national assumptions that it gave rise to, formed the unspoken yet omnipresent backdrop to my whole upbringing and education. Arguably the heroism of the Few artificially buttressed the sense of moral superiority of the Many for generations to come. We're still dining out on them today. The strange British attitude of condescension towards continental Europe is to a large degree based upon the unthinking assumption of superior martial prowess - "we won the war". What Patrick Bishop shows us is that it wasn't, isn't, really like that.

In 1940 the RAF was still a young service and relatively free of the class-consciousness which permeated the Army and the Navy. As the threat of war grew through the thirties, so the authorities recognised the need to train more pilots. Numerous schemes were devised to make it possible for young men from all walks of life to realise their ambition to fly an aeroplane. Technical ability took precedence over blue blood, while the blue uniform became the unmistakable livery of a new youthful aristocracy. 19 to 26 was the age bracket of the fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain - young even for a football team. They were an elite, the coolest guys in town. This was what my father wanted to be a part of when he joined up in 1941 - a band of airborne warrior-brothers, revelling in a classless confraternity, affecting a careless, cigarette-smoking nonchalance as they basked in the gratitude of the nation. But they had to be young: only that sense of youthful invulnerability could have enabled them to continue taking off time and time again to engage in the terrifying ordeal of aerial combat. Camaraderie, that sense of fellowship which is the special preserve of the young, was what kept them going. Expressions of jingoistic nationalism were treated with contempt. Losses were treated with a studied resignation. Fear was suppressed or even joked about: the nervous tingling of the anal sphinctre brought on by anxiety was known as "ring twitch". Drinking bouts were the preferred psychotherapy viewed as infinitely preferable to morbid introspection. Sincerity and decency were instinctively the qualities most demanded by the group ethic. Not to be "gen" guaranteed ostracisation. Those that survived the war often found it difficult to readapt to the habitual insincerities of civilian life. [I suspect that many regretted the sense of solidarity that permeated wartime society. I remember my mother-in-law speaking of how that special atmosphere evaporated almost the instant peace was declared.] While media-nationalism was ridiculed, love of country was undeniably a motivating force for many, reinforced by the fact of constantly flying over the map of England. When, after the Battle of Britain, the air-war moved to the continent, the sentiment was never quite the same.

The air defence of the Britain was almost certainly the country's most important contribution to the overall war effort, preserving as it did a vital jumping-off point for the re-invasion of Europe and the final destruction of the Nazi regime. It was probably more of a statistical exercise than we would really care to admit. It was a lot less about the courage of individual pilots or the shooting down of enemy planes than it was about maintaining a fighter command in being. No German invasion could be contemplated without first having obtained air superiority, which was why the British were so relieved when the Luftwaffe ceased attacking airfields in order to bomb London. Civilians were expendable, planes and pilots vital. There were many pilots who never made any "kills" at all. Some were unnecessarily shot down over-eagerly trying to "bag" their first enemy.

War is a terrible thing but it exerts an undeniable fascination - a fascination, we are bound to admit, with the imminence of death. How would I perform under such extreme circumstances? How would I confront the possibility, the likelihood even, of my own sudden extinction? I remember as a boy asking my father about his war-time experiences. Having trained in Canada, he joined Transport Command as a Navigator flying DC3's. He towed gliders at D-Day, Arnhem and the Rhine crossing. "What's it like when they shoot at you?" I asked. He answered directly and with brutal frankness: "You go in your pants".

[Footnote: The RAF uniform conveyed fabulous status during and even after the war. In the late forties my father was stationed in Copenhagen helping the Danes to redevelop civil aviation at Kastrup airport. It was at that time that he met my mother who was, I can't help suspecting, largely bowled over by the uniform. Who knows? Without that uniform I probably wouldn't be here today!]