Page 77 - All About History - Issue 27-15

FORGOTTEN HEROES OF THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

Ray Holmes

The plane that Holmes
NATIONALITY: ENGLISH RANK: FLIGHT SERGEANT, 504 SQUADRON rammed out of the sky
hit shops close to Victoria
This pilot’s heroics saved Buckingham Palace from Station. His plane crashed
nearby at Ebury Bridge on
certain destruction – and he did it without bullets, too Buckingham Palace Road

By 11 October, the Battle of several bombers, before latching onto a badly
Britain was over. While damaged one heading straight for Buckingham GERMANY’S
Hitler hadn’t officially Palace. Holmes wasn’t to know, but the plane was
10 cancelled the invasion of actually unmanned. It’d been so badly shot up over FIGHTER ACES
south London that its crew had bailed out. Its pilot,
Britain, he had formally
postponed it. It marked a Oberleutnant Robert Zehbe, had left the plane on a With 111 kills between them, the top
true turning point in the fixed course before parachuting to what he thought three Luftwaffe pilots accounted for
war. It was Nazi was safety. Coming down near the Oval cricket seven per cent of all RAF losses
Germany’s first defeat and proof that the Führer’s ground, however, he was attacked by an angry mob
ideologically driven killers weren’t invincible. and later died of his wounds. Oberleutnant Helmut Wick
Battle of Britain kills: 42
What didn’t stop, however, was the bombing of Crewless it may have been, but Zehbe’s Wick was the highest-scoring pilot
Britain, which would only intensify over the next bomber still had a full payload, enough to of the entire Battle of Britain. The
seven months as the Battle of Britain dovetailed obliterate the palace. Holmes closed in behind 25-year-old became only the fourth
member of the German armed
into the Blitz. it, lined it up in his sights, and pressed the
forces to be awarded the King’s
London had first been bombed on 24 August, Hurricane’s trigger. But he was out of ammo. Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaf
accidentally and against the express orders of Hitler The young Liverpudlian then made a desperate Clusters. He was killed in combat over
himself, as it turned out. But the revenge bombing decision. “There was no time to weigh up the the Channel in November 1940.
of the city of Berlin by the RAF the very next situation,” he revealed afterwards. “[The German] Major Adolf Galland
day so infuriated him that the focus of the Battle aeroplane looked so flimsy. I just went on and Battle of Britain kills: 35
of Britain was switched from destroying Fighter hit it for six. I thought my plane would cut Galland would go on to become the
youngest general in the German
Command and its bases to destroying Britain’s right through it.” military, attaining the rank of general
infrastructure. It was to prove a costly error. The Flying at more than 400mph, Holmes of the fighter arm in 1941. His total
great raids sent to terrorise London began in rammed the German bomber’s tail. It caused number of kills for the war was 104,
despite being banned from combat
earnest on 7 September, and had soon become a his Hurricane to plunge into a steep nosedive. between December 1941 and the end
regular occurrence. He was forced to bail out, but the impact had of 1944 by Hitler himself.
On Sunday 15 September at 11.30am, a force also snapped the bomber in two, and had flipped
of 100 bombers and 200 fighters approached the remaining fuselage over so wildly that the Hauptman Walter Oesau
Battle of Britain kills: 34
London. As they were tracked by the radar station g-force ripped both its wings off. By the time the Battle of Britain
at Uxbridge, where Churchill just happened to be The bomb load then fell free, and although started, Oesau was already a
visiting the operations room that day, 250 fighters part of it did hit the palace, the bulk missed, veteran of the Spanish Civil War, the
invasion of Poland and The Battle
were despatched to deal with them. while the plane itself was knocked clear. It
of France; he had 14 kills. By the
By noon, the surviving bombers arrived over ended up crashing by Victoria Station without time he was killed in May 1944 by
central London. Here, they were engaged by further loss of life. Holmes’s staggering courage an American pilot, he’d extended that
Hurricanes from 504 Squadron. One was being had ensured a vital part of Britain’s heritage would tally to 127.
piloted by 24-year-old Ray Holmes, who attacked survive the war.
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