In the hours of darkness over Cassino, Anzio and the
Germans’ winter lines, the Beaufighter night-fighters of No. 600 Squadron RAF
continued to take their toll of any Luftwaffe night intruders. No. 600
Squadron, the City of London’s Auxiliary Air Force squadron, was one of the
first to be equipped with AI radar for night-fighter operations.
Throughout the war the Beaufighter was the RAF’s heaviest
armed fighter. In addition to four 20mm Hispano cannon under the forward
fuselage, it could carry three Browning machine guns in each wing. Its two
Bristol Hercules radial engines also enabled it to carry under its wings
long-range fuel tanks, bombs, torpedoes or rockets. The Beaufighter was capable
of deployment to a greater variety of use than any other aircraft, until the
arrival of the Mosquito, the original multi-role combat aircraft.
The Beaufighter Mk VIF night-fighter had a top speed of some
330mph, and a range of around 1,500 miles. The plane’s design and construction
strength allowed it to shrug off remarkable amounts of enemy fire, and
permitted its two-man crew to survive a crash-landing which normally could be
fatal. Despite being heavy and unwieldy to manoeuvre, once pilots were
experienced in their characteristics they were devoted to the Beaufighter.
During May 1944, as Allied armies surged north from Cassino
and Anzio, Lieutenant Jack Ingate and his fellow pilots of 600 Squadron scoured
the night skies for intruding enemy aircraft. Every night their Beaufighters,
sometimes as many as nine aircraft, were out on defensive patrols seeking a
radar contact with an enemy ‘bandit’ or ‘bogey’. Finding and closing in on a
radar contact, unsure whether it was friend or foe, demanded painstaking and
disciplined work by the two-man crew.
The Beaufighter’s navigator/radio/radar operator was
confronted by radio/radar jamming by German ground defences, and ‘Window’
tinfoil dropped by enemy aircraft, which would snow the reception of the
aircraft’s radar equipment. Patrol durations, depending upon contacts and other
circumstances of operational activity, could last even beyond five hours. On
the night of 14/15 May 1944 a typical eight Beaufighters took off on defensive
patrols, in staggered departures from 2015 to 0405 from their base at
Marcianise.
14/15 May 1944, No. 600 Squadron RAF Operations Record Book
(summarized extracts):
At 0020 on 15 May in a Beaufighter Mk VIII AI, Flight
Lieutenant G.B.S. Coleman DFC and Australian Flying Officer N.R. Frumar took
off from their Marcianise air base in a defensive patrol. It was a clear night
with flak and explosions seen some 20 miles out to sea, and the lights of
Allied Army motor transport convoys visible, as they pushed out many miles into
enemy territory. At 0400 Coleman and Frumar were vectored by ground control
onto a bogey.
Within a few minutes they obtained contact with the
target over mountainous terrain. It was at a two-mile range, and slightly above
their altitude. Despite the bandit jinking violently to evade the Beaufighter’s
pursuit, they held onto the contact. Coleman closed up to about 1,000 feet from
the target, and visually identified the aircraft as a Ju87B Stuka dive-bomber.
At 0415 Coleman opened fire. Simultaneously the Stuka
hurtled into a steep dive down amongst the mountain peaks, which prevented
observation of any damage to the Ju87B. Because the Beaufighter was already low
on fuel, Coleman was unable to pursue. When they arrived back at Marcianise at
0515, Coleman and Frumar had clocked up a flight time of 4.55 hours.
Some two hours after Coleman and Frumar’s departure, at
0230, Australian Flying Officer S.F. Rees and Flying Officer D.C. Bartlett
lifted off their Beaufighter Mk VIF AI (No. V6574) from Marcianise. North of
the River Tiber sometime after 0400 they made contact with a bogey and gave
chase. When close enough they identified a Ju88. This time there was no escape
for the German intruder, and at 0441 Rees shot down the German bomber. Rees and
Bartlett returned to Marcianise at 0520.
Frequently after being vectored onto a suspected bogey and
contact acquired, it could be lost not only through enemy radar jamming, and
‘Window’ interference, but also by the target outrunning the Beaufighter or
escaping into cloud. In many instances Beaufighters would intercept a vectored
bogey, only to find it was another Allied aircraft.
29/30 May 1944, No. 600 Squadron RAF Operations Record Book
(summarized extracts):
On 29 May from 0200, on a defensive patrol from
Marcionise, Flying Officer A.M. Davidson and Warrant Officer J.A. Telford were
flying their Beaufighter Mk VIF AI (No. MM905). On three occasions, 0320, 0350,
and 0450, they were vectored and obtained contacts on bogeys coming from the
north. All three contacts were identified as Allied Boston bombers.
In the evening of 29 May at 2225 Warrant Officer D. Kerr
and Warrant Officer G.H. Wheeler lifted their Beaufighter Mk VIF AI (No. ND148)
into the night sky from Marcianise. At 2225 in the vicinity of Anzio they were
vectored on to a slow-flying aircraft. Twelve miles north-east of Anzio they
obtained contact. After a six-minute chase they had closed to about 500 feet of
the target, when the suspected bandit dived and contact was lost. Another
contact, possibly the same target, was picked up immediately.
Kerr closed up to minimum range but then overshot. Kerr
carried out the overshoot procedure, and again closed up to the minimum range
from target. In a brief visual identification Kerr and Wheeler identified the
contact as a Ju87 Stuka, moments before it flew into a bank of mist. Before
Kerr could line up his guns on the German dive-bomber, it dived and radar
contact was lost in ground return interference. During the rest of the patrol
Kerr and Wheeler obtained and chased three more contacts where, through the
targets’ evasive action, their pursuit proved fruitless. After a flight time of
4.05 hours they safely landed their Beaufighter back at Marcianise at 0230 on
30 May.
The night-fighters of 600 Squadron were waging an
unremitting air war of attrition, often tedious, exasperating, energy sapping
and at the same time nerve-racking, yet unspectacular, unseen and little
recognized. But the cloak of the night must not allow the Luftwaffe to make a
resurgence.
#
The next attack on Cassino and the Gustav Line, Operation
DIADEM, was planned for early May by the combined forces of Fifth and Eighth
Armies. The timing was significant. Together with the simultaneous break-out
from Anzio, Operation BUFFALO, there would be less than a month before the
planned D Day landings in Normandy. The hope was that the offensives would draw
German attention and their forces to Italy, and away from Normandy and
north-west Europe. At the same time Operations DIADEM and BUFFALO in themselves
must succeed. Any further stalemate or defeats in Italy could be catastrophic,
and allow the Germans to divert divisions to Normandy. A strategic loss in
Italy would be a huge psychological blow to the Allies in all theatres.
The night of 11 May 1944 was set for the fourth battle to
begin, the hoped-for final battle for Cassino and the Monte Cassino Monastery.
With the bulk of Eighth Army now added to Fifth Army, the Allies planned to
throw overwhelming force at the mountain bastion. In a concentration of
numbers, firepower and a massive artillery bombardment, they intended to smash
their way through the Gustav Line and north onto Highway 6. It was not just a
pincer movement of ground forces. While Allied movements had little or no fear
from Luftwaffe air raids, the German Army found in retreat that they were under
constant attack from Allied air forces.
In one instance on May 14, 239 Wing targeted some 200 or so
vehicles trying to withdraw at Subiaco. By the day’s end there were an
estimated 120 destroyed or damaged. In the last six days of May Allied fighters
and fighter-bombers claimed 1,148 vehicles of all types destroyed and 766
damaged. This may have even been under-stated. Between Cori and Artena on the
Adolf Hitler Line, Fifth Army counted 211 vehicles wrecked clearly by air
strikes, whereas air force claims had only estimated 173. With the waning of
the Luftwaffe’s attempted offensive, and its inability to stem the Allied
armies’ offensive, DAF operations became predominantly fighter-bomber attacks
against the retreating columns of enemy troops.
During this time, while DAF once more was asserting its air
superiority, Wing Commander Hugh Dundas could only watch from the sidelines. He
was not able to join 244 Wing RAF until his appointment came through at the end
of May. The Spitfire fighters of 244 Wing had built an enviable record through
the North African desert war, Alamein, Tunisia, Sicily and southern Italy. As
the Allies broke out of the Gustav Line and Anzio, Dundas must have looked on
with heightened interest, as 244 Wing added to their exploits in the air
battles of May.
In a desperate attempt to make an impact, the Luftwaffe
threw all its remaining fighters and fighter-bombers into the fray. The air
battles once again included Squadron Leader Neville Duke, recently returned from
a period in training duties, to lead No. 145 Squadron RAF in 244 Wing. Over
Arezzo, close to Florence, on 13 May Duke led a patrol of six Spitfires into an
engagement with six Bf109s. Duke expressed his relish to be back in an aerial
battle with the Luftwaffe, showing his typical confidence in himself and his
aircraft:
Great things at last! We met up with six Me109s … and we
had a good dice. I got a burst at one and saw strikes under its belly before he
rolled down and off. Stayed up and dodged and turned for a bit, finally fixing
onto one up above, whom I climbed and turned with, easily climbing and
out-turning him.
As the 109 tried violent evasive action, Duke stayed with
him and saw his fire strike its fuselage and engine. Parts fell off the enemy
fighter as it plunged into a death spin. Soon after he saw the explosion where
the 109 crashed, for his first confirmed victory in Italy.
When Dundas took up his appointment as commander on 31 May
and arrived at 244 Wing, he found a massive celebration underway at an
abandoned farmhouse. Each of the wing’s five squadrons had set up a bar, and
were in competition to serve the strongest alcoholic drink. He learnt that the
party was to mark 244 Wing’s 400th victory of the war. Between 13 and 31 May,
when the Luftwaffe found a way to launch a significant challenge in the air,
244 Wing shot down twenty-three enemy aircraft, three probable, and another
twenty badly damaged.
Although Allied air power confronted and killed off the
Luftwaffe’s desperate attempt at a counter-attack, the real questions were on
the ground. Could Operation DIADEM, at last bursting through the Gustav Line,
combine with the break-out from Anzio? Would Fifth and Eighth Armies in the
Allies’ pincer strategy, Operation BUFFALO, crush and destroy the German Tenth
Army as if in a vice?
