Encounter Over the Thames Estuary

This was the period of the “Phoney War”. While a number of Hurricane Squadrons had been sent to France to provide air support for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) those equipped with the newer Spitfires, of which 234 Squadron was one, were retained in England for home defence. It was a time of preparation and readiness but little action. Meanwhile, in Hull, Hughes met and courted an English girl, Kathleen Brodrick.

Then, in May 1940, the “Phoney War” erupted into violence of the Blitzkrieg as invading German armies swept into the Low Countries. Belgium and Holland fell quickly and soon the BEF had to be evacuated from Dunkirk. RAF fighters gave air cover from England and both sides suffered heavy casualties. Of the 261 Hurricanes committed to France, only 66 were able to be flown back to England in the middle of June. Fighter Command had lost a quarter of its strength and it was obvious that the Luftwaffe would strike at England next.

During the month of July, although 234 Squadron was not heavily engaged, it began to meet some opposition and Pat Hughes shared in the destruction of three German bombers, all Ju 88s. Events were beginning to move quickly and soon 234 was transferred to another airfield at St. Eval, Cornwall. Before it went, Pat Hughes and Kathleen Brodrick were married.

On August 13, the Luftwaffe struck out at the airfields and sector stations in Southern England. It was “Adler Tag” (Eagle Day) and the major onslaught of the Battle of Britain had begun. Two days later, Thursday August 15, saw the heaviest and most costly engagements of the entire Battle. It was also on this day that the Australian opened his account in earnest by shooting down two Messerschmitt Bf 110s, sharing one of them with Bob Doe. He had begun following the advice he would recount over and over to others later – get in close and you can’t miss.

Next day, he was involved in more vicious fighting and he shot down two more, this time they were Messerschmitt Bf 109s, but not before his own plane was damaged. He was able to make a safe landing and his Spitfire was repairable. He scored a double again on the 18th and then yet again on the 26th.

The Luftwaffe continued to hammer the airfields and sector stations. RAF losses were heavy but in terms of aircraft they were being met. The real danger at this time was the loss rate of Fighter Command pilots. Over ten days ending on August 17, more than 150 pilots were killed, wounded or missing. If the same loss rate continued, Fighter Command would be down between 300-350 pilots by the end of the month. With less than 100 due to finish training, the squadrons would soon be bled dry.

Several emergency measures were decided upon. Volunteers were drawn from Bomber Command but the most drastic decision was to shorten the training of the new pilots to an absolute minimum. It had been one of these hastily trained airmen who had asked Pat Hughes for advice. Hughes was a very competent flight commander and he led largely by example. When he was not in the air he could always be found playing with his dog, appropriately named Flying Officer Butch, to which he was very devoted. At times he even took the animal up flying.

RAF tactics centred on the idea that the slower Hurricanes would attack the bombers while they were protected from the German escorts by the faster and more manoeuvrable Spitfires. Consequently, all of Pat Hughes’ confirmed kills were fighters. His number of victories continued to mount and on September 4 he scored a triple – three Bf 110s fell before his guns.

On August 30, a German radio broadcast described as “the greatest fighter exploit of the war so far” an incident involving a German aviator which had occurred two days before. The pilot claimed that after losing contact with his comrades he shot down a Spitfire, joined up with six Hawker Hurricanes in a landing circuit, shot down two of them and probably a third and finally strafed the English airfield destroying five planes on the ground – at least eight English planes in one operation. The German airman was Oberleutnant Franz von Werra.

A flamboyant character, he was short but strongly built and held himself very erect in order to make the most of what height he had. He was in his element when he was the centre of attention. After joining the rapidly expanding Luftwaffe before the war he found himself posted to JG3 in September, 1938. Always the showy extrovert, one day in June 1939, while indulging in low level aerobatics, he was obliged to crash land and was injured, requiring several months for recovery.

Von Werra was a young man in a hurry and as a means of furthering his career he sought both public and official recognition. Meanwhile, the war was in progress bringing quick victories for the Germans in the Low Countries. The Nazi propaganda machine anxiously followed the exploits of its new heroes. In mid 1940, photographs appeared showing him sitting in the cockpit of a Bf 109 while nursing the Gruppe mascot, a lion cub called “Simba” borrowed from the Berlin Zoo.

He was a capable flier and by September 4, 1940, markings on the tail of his Messerschmitt Bf 109E-4 indicated that he had been credited with eight victories in the air (two French, six British) and five aircraft destroyed on the ground. Always prone towards exaggeration, his claims for several others had not been allowed. His major exploit, publicised so widely on August 30, seemed to many of his Luftwaffe comrades to be almost too good to be true and indeed British records have no evidence of the incident. Such claims, although rigorously checked, made it difficult for the Germans to accurately assess the overall success of the Luftwaffe’s tactics.

At a German High Command conference on September 1, Luftwaffe chiefs claimed that since August 8, the RAF had lost a total of 1115 fighters and 92 bombers. These figures were highly inaccurate and inflated but they led the Germans into the false belief that it was only a matter of time before the last 50 or 60 British fighters would be shot down. Air superiority would then pave the way for invasion.

Thursday, September 5, 1940

A day of heavy fighting – the Luftwaffe continues its assault on British airfields and Biggin Hill and Detling are hit as also are the Thameshaven oil tanks. German losses amount to 23 planes while the RAF loses 20. During the day a damaged Messerschmitt Bf 109E-4 of 11/JG 3, its engine missing badly, force lands at Winchet Hill, Love’s Farm, Marden in Kent. There is an unreal silence after it slides to a halt leaving behind it a 30 yard (27m) furrow in the earth. Its pilot, in a daze, climbs slowly out of the cockpit and a few moments later soldiers from a nearby searchlight battery, some carrying rifles, come running up. Oberleutnant Franz von Werra has been captured by the English.

The bravado von Werra displayed as a fighter ace among his comrades remained with him as a POW. He proved difficult to hold and made a number of escape attempts. On one occasion, he slipped over a low wall during a route march and remained free for several days. Captured while he was hiding in a shepherd’s hut by two home guards, he managed to escape again from them only to be recaptured once more the following afternoon.

On another occasion the partial collapse of an escape tunnel almost killed him. The tunnel remained undetected and was eventually completed. He was one of five who later used it to escape. All except von Werra were quickly recaptured. Posing as a Dutch pilot serving in Coastal Command, he attempted to steal a Hawker Hurricane from RAF Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. He was in the cockpit trying to start it when the Duty Officer arrested him.

Shortly afterwards he was included in a group of POWs shipped across to Canada. In Nova Scotia the prisoners were transported by rail from Halifax to their new camp. En route von Werra managed to prize open a window and jump from the moving train. He was not missed until the following morning. This time he was not recaptured and made good his escape by crossing the nearby border into the then neutral United States. He was the only German aviator to escape from British custody and return to fight for his country again. His story is told in “The One That Got Away” by Kendal Burt and James Leasor, first published in 1956.

Concerning the combat which resulted in von Werra’s fall into British hands, there is some confusion. That he crash landed on September 5 at Winchet Hill is not disputed but other circumstances surrounding the incident are open to question. Characteristically, von Werra’s own accounts of what happened are not reliable because they tended to be “coloured” to suit his audience. On one occasion, he claimed to have shot down three British planes before colliding with another Bf 109 and being forced down. Another time he claimed to have destroyed only the fighter which had attacked him. He always maintained that his plane had caught fire when it crash landed and was gutted. Actually, it was captured in a relatively undamaged condition.

Burt and Leasor state that von Werra was shot down shortly after 10.00am by Flt Lt John Terrence Webster DFC of 41 Squadron based at Hornchurch. Webster was a veteran of operations over Dunkirk and by September 5, he had been credited with the destruction of 14 German planes. His combat report reads:

“I was leading Blue Section 41 Squadron when a large enemy formation was sighted to the port. I followed Motor leaders section in and Blue Section delivered an attack in line astern on Bf 109 attacking on the beam from above. I fired a three second burst at a 109 and saw the bullets going into the engine. This aircraft dived away steeply. I then attempted to attack the rear bomber formation again using a diving quarter. I tried three successive attacks but each time was followed by a 109 and forced to break away before getting a good deflection. I did not fire at the bombers. I then dived away from the bombers and ran into several He 113s. I attacked these and saw one burst into flames after a three second burst from astern and directly above, using just over full deflection. After this attack I pulled up steeply and looked around. I saw a Spitfire diving steeply chased by three Bf 109s. I chased after these and one broke away after a short burst from directly astern. I lost the Spitfire but followed another 109 down to ground level where I managed to get in a good burst from 48 degrees astern and saw the aircraft roll onto its back and crash into the ground near Maidstone. I then returned to base.”

It was the latter which Burt and Leasor state to have been von Werra’s machine. Other sources disagree. Air historian Francis K Mason in his book “Battle over Britain” declares that von Werra was shot down in the afternoon at 3.25pm by the Australian air ace Pat Hughes. This claim is repeated in other publications including Derek Wood’s “Target England – The illustrated history of the Battle of Britain”.

German sources show that JG 3 lost six aircraft and their pilots on September 5, some in the morning and some in the afternoon. Confirmation from German sources of the actual time von Werra failed to return has not been forthcoming because records have either been lost or destroyed. Meanwhile, Mason suggests that 41 Squadron actually engaged JG 54 that morning and names Uffz Behse and Ultsch as the Luftwaffe pilots killed in the action. Possibly one of these fell to John Webster’s guns.

Fighting that morning centred on mid Kent, around Maidstone – Ashford, whilst that of the afternoon appeared to be located slightly further south over the Thames Estuary. From there, as the Germans made their way home, it apparently drifted southwards towards the South Kent Coast where the raiders crossed out over the Channel. In terms of flying time it takes only a few minutes from the Thames Estuary to Marden. A German fighter which was damaged over the river or North Kent and turned onto the most direct route home would most inevitably follow a flightpath which would take it near Marden where von Werra came down.

Modern research seems to indicate that von Werra was shot down in the afternoon rather than in the morning and it should be remembered that “The One That Got Away” was written almost 40 years ago at a time when several relevant papers were still regarded as secret and therefore not available to the authors. To further complicate matters von Werra’s low flying aircraft was fired on by a Lewis gun at the searchlight battery site just before it crash landed. A claim was made by the searchlight gunners and to this day some publications still credit the army with bringing the Messerschmitt down. Von Werra at no time mentioned being hit by ground fire and it is most unlikely that he would have been so low had his aircraft not already been seriously damaged.

It is not likely that the question of who actually shot down von Werra will ever be solved without reasonable doubt (after all who could be absolutely positive about every detail of a whirling, confused dogfight) but the details of the combat report written by Pat Hughes line up well with other known facts:

“I was Blue Leader. We were behind Red Section at 20,000 feet and going towards Gravesend where we had seen AA fire when we were attacked out of the sun by three Bf 109s. As I turned to attack I saw 12 109s in two vies of five and seven coming up the Estuary. I turned and dived and was joined by two Hurricanes. A dogfight ensued over Eastchurch. I fired a full deflection shot at one 109 and hit his ammunition tanks. He blew up and spun down. I then attacked a vie of three 109s, singled out one and chased him attacking from dead astern. I must have shot his oil tank away as there was oil all over my wings to the tips. Enemy aircraft force landed in a field 15 miles SW of Manston.”

Hughes’ description tallies with the account worked out by Burt and Leasor in “The One That Got Away”. They also mention the vie formation of the German planes when they note that leading the formation was 2/JG3’s commanding officer, Hauptmann Erich von Selle, who had on his immediate left and right two staff officers, Leutnant Heinrich Sanneman and Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, respectively. It was apparently these three that Pat Hughes attacked when he wound up chasing the Bf 109 which eventually force landed, although his judgement of the position was not all that accurate.

The time noted on the Australian’s Combat Report is also significant. Under the heading “Time Attack was delivered” he stated 15.45 hours or 3.45 pm, not 3.25 pm as suggested by Mason. Hughes then brought down two planes, the first which exploded and the second which was apparently von Werra’s. If this time is correct it would have been impossible for John Webster to have brought down von Werra because he had already been killed in action. The Spitfires of 41 Squadron had engaged Dornier 17s and their escorting Bf 109s over the Thames Estuary and during the melee two of the British machines collided head-on. Both John Webster and Squadron Leader HRL Hood were killed. Time estimates given for this unfortunate accident range between 3.25 pm and 3.30 pm, at least 15-20 minutes before Pat Hughes engaged in combat.

Coincidentally, Pat Hughes, who must be considered to be the most likely pilot to have shot down “The One That Got Away”, is believed to have also perished in a mid-air collision. His close-in tactics, which had brought him 14 successes and established him as the highest scoring Australian in the Battle of Britain, also brought about his downfall. It happened just two days later during the London raid on September 7, one month after his wedding day. As he attacked a Dornier bomber, it suddenly blew up and his Spitfire apparently collided with the wreckage (although there is some controversy as to whether or not this is what actually happened). Hughes had no chance to bail out.

On September 13, after a service at St. James, Sutton-in-Holderness, Hull, he was buried in the churchyard. He had been posthumously awarded the DFC. Like so many airmen who had died during the Battle of Britain, his inscription was fittingly engraved: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.

Postscript

Franz von Werra outlived both John Webster and Pat Hughes by just over a year. After returning to Germany he eventually served as the commanding officer of 1/JG 53 on the Russian Front. He shot down 13 Russian planes to bring his tally to 21 but on October 25, 1941, the engine of his Bf 109 failed and his machine plunged into the sea near Vlissingen. He was drowned.