George Sheridan

I just received a letter from Jane. She’s pregnant! My goodness! We haven’t seen much of each other this summer but it was obviously enough. I feel very proud that I’m going to be a father and of course it makes me even more aware of the need to stay alive: for my child as well as for Jane, and as well as for myself.

I returned to Biggin Hill after seeing Jane for a couple of days on September 1 and 2nd. On September 4 we were scrambled to intercept a large force of 70 bombers – Heinkels and Dorniers – along with a 200 strong fighter escort. We have learned by now to gain height heading in the opposite direction from where the attack is coming, and then to double back once we have some altitude. It is easy to dive down on the enemy, but almost impossible to attack from below when you become an easy target for Me 109s. When I saw the assembled ranks of planes it felt like we were taking on the whole might of the Luftwaffe. We went at them with the sun behind us, striking the formation a little to the rear of centre.

Biggin Hill has been hit badly this week when 39 people were killed in a bombing raid on August 30. We were bombed yesterday as well. Then today, just as the bodies from the first attack were being buried at the village cemetery, another attack came in and the mourners had to run for cover. Once they had returned after the all-clear, the Padre finished the service with bombs still exploding in the distance.

The face of the squadron has changed dramatically over the past two weeks as we’ve lost pilots and newer and younger ones have arrived. The strange thing about flying is that you almost never see a real dead body and so it is as though your friends have not died at all but gone somewhere else, perhaps carried on flying higher and higher so they could escape the war completely. No-one ever says they died anyway. They just ‘failed to return’, were lost, or ‘went west’, into the setting sun.

Without doubt, it’s been the hardest week of my entire life of 23 years. The Germans have been flooding the skies over the south east with more planes than I thought I would ever see in my lifetime if I lived to be 70. I’ve crashed one plane, survived a bombing raid and seen one of my best friends get burned beyond recognition in his Hurricane before he baled out. At the start of the summer, just a few weeks ago, I was passionate about fighting in this war; now that passion has turned into a more calculated cold-bloodedness, a kind of primitive, reptilian survival instinct.