"JUST SPITFIRES"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 234, 6 November 1940, Page 8

"JUST SPITFIRES"

PILOTS LOVE THEIR STEEDS Tlie pilot grunled. "We are not men any more. We are just Spit-> <x-> (ires." W T e were in the mess of a FighterCommand station. The pilots, just back from a perilous; patrol, were listening-in to the B.BC. comrauni- 1 que (wrote Ritchie Calder in theLondori Daily Herald). Until now we are beginning, to forget thatthere: are men as Avell as machines, and that the men are immeasurably themore important. Slumped in their armchairs theyrdid not talk about the deadly risks from which only a few minutes be-- ; fore they. had. escaped, nor about the enemy they had chased over theChannel. " • "R.T." alias "radio telephone," - has given witness of the amazing' spirit of these men. They use it lo talk to each other in the air, but reception is so good that when a squad' - ; ron or a flight is conversing among: , themselves their cross-talk* unknown to them, can often be picked up at - headquarters. - , In the thick of "dog fights" heav-- J? ily engaged, they talk over R.T. % through the barrage of death as un- , concernedly as though they were- , K shouting across the mess "Say, George," calls one--j "there's a 109 on your tail," "Okay, pal. I'll do as~'mT)fcn^\^r l * * v you/' They watch over each other likebrothers. On, one occasion two' fight- ' ers had been sent to escort, a de-- • 1 fenceless aeroplane, which was" , bringing a Royal Air Force survivoroff a French coast. One was flying' above the clouds and the other beneath. . Back in England "Operations''" heard one call out: < "Came up here, pal; there's a swarm of 109'5." „ « " "All right. Keep them busy. I'm*." on my waj' upstairs." ■ The two boys er.gagod nine Messer ' sehmitts, shot down throe, crippled* - .... three more, and sent the other threechasing for home. .