Adrian Francis Laws
Encyclopedia
Pilot Officer Adrian Francis Laws (1912 – 1940) was born in East Dereham, Norfolk
and enlisted in the ranks of the RAF in 1931. He was promoted Flight Sergeant
on 1 July 1940. He piloted a Spitfire Mark I's with 64 Squadron
. Adrian Laws was killed on 30 September 1940 as the result of a collision with another Spitfire while training new arrivals at 64 Squadron.
"The King has been graciously pleased to approve the under-mentioned award, in recognition of gallantry displayed in flying operations against the enemy:-
Awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal
- 514143 Flight Sergeant Adrian Francis Laws - This Airman
has taken part in numerous operational flights since May, 1940. He has destroyed five enemy aircraft and damaged another two. His initiative, courage and tenacity have been outstanding.
64 Squadron was also born in Norfolk, being formed in August 1916 at Sedgeford
RFC
station near Fakenham
. In October 1917 they took their DH5
's to the larger airfield at Bircham Newton
, just ten miles down the road.
At the age of nineteen Laws enlisted in the ranks of the RAF. 64 Squadron was reformed at Heliopolis
in 1935 during the Abyssinian crisis. Equipped with two-seater Demons
they were to return to the UK within 15 months.
By late 1939 Laws was flying Blenheims
out of Church Fenton
in the Leconfield
sector. War had started, yet nothing seemed to be happening on the wider front. By now an extremely accomplished pilot, Laws could not have been unhappy when 64 Squadron converted to the new Spitfire Mark I.
The Battle of Britain
was about to begin in earnest.
ensued". But here, both he and Gilbert describe every twist and turn of the engagement.
The incident also shows the deadly effect of radar
and observer tracking
. The lone bomber
trying to sneak out at zero feet was not allowed to escape. Laws and Gilbert, supposed to fly in section, actually left the ground ten minutes apart. So it was Gilbert who found the raider first and emptied his guns into the enemy aircraft. One engine was damaged and one gunner was killed or injured.
A short time later the He 111 was to become the object of Laws' attention. He hounded the damaged bomber to wave-top height with two passes. While two other Spitfires arrived to take shots at what was now a wallowing enemy, Laws emptied his guns and watched the Heinkel settle on the water. His reluctance to leave his first kill is evident as he describes circling the plane and seeing the crew inflating their dinghy.
before he himself was badly shot up in combat with a Ju 88 off Dover
. MacDonnell however was unhurt and managed to land safely. MacDonell, official head of the Glengarry clan, was to say about his squadron's pilots "it's like holding a team of wild horses when there are Germans near" .
On this day the wild horses of 64 Squadron found their action amongst the German fighters when they engaged a flight of 109's over St. Margaret's Bay
at eight o'clock in the morning. Sadly no combat reports survive for this engagement, but we do know that 64 Squadron's Sgt. Binham was shot down, managing to force-land his aircraft safely.
Laws avenged Binham's indignity by shooting down a 109.
's planned "Eagle Day
" was cancelled for the second day running due to the cloudy weather that prevailed. In place of this operation the Luftwaffe
mounted a "free chase" over Sussex. The formation consisted of more than 30 fighters and the German plan was to draw the RAF interceptors
away from bombing raids going into Weymouth and Portland
. Four squadrons took the bait and 64 Squadron were vectored to intercept the force as it started to make its way home.
The rear section was the first to spot the enemy who had a 5000 feet height advantage. It seems the squadron had found about half the retreating force of Me 109's. There then followed a strange processional attack by the Germans which overshot the 8 Spitfires of 64 Squadron who then pounced to their own attack. This gave them a definite advantage in the minutes that followed:
MacDonnell - "...exhausted ammunition in several dead astern bursts..."
O'Meara
- "...attacked from astern..."
Laws - "...three second burst from dead astern..."
The 109 that Laws attacked was on the tail of Blue 1. Assuming the Messerschmitt had some ammunition left, the pilot of Blue 1 had reason to be thankful. It was Pilot Officer Gilbert, who was destined to survive the war. There is almost an air of disappointment in the description of the enemy tactics in the last paragraph of the Squadron Combat Report. They may have been largely new pilots, drafted in to replace mounting Luftwaffe losses of more experienced fighters. Or maybe they had expended too much ammunition and fuel in previous engagements and were simply running for home. The cloudy conditions meant that none of the aircraft engaged could be confirmed as destroyed.
Also it seems that the bomber crews were suffering from frayed nerves. Laws was a member of "Flight B" when they spotted a formation that they identified as Dornier 215's. The enemy, set on a north-easterly course, needed no more persuasion than the sight of Spitfires to turn and run for home. Once on the run the formation opted simply for speed and wasted no energy on evasion. However when Laws latched onto his tail one German pilot decided to fight for his life. He led Laws into a series of steep diving turns that challenged both Laws and his Spitfire to keep up. A lesser pilot would have been thrown off; Laws clung on. The German, with his rear gunner disabled from the initial attack, may have believed he'd done enough to lose his tormentor and straightened up to dive for cloud. He reached the cloud, but on his way collected more Spitfire ordnance in his fuselage.
grumbled his way through one of his most famous speeches in the Commons. At last the country had a label, and the label was to stick - The Few.
The results of the engagements that took place on the 15th can be seen as a victory for the escorting German fighters in as much as they held back the intercepting British fighters and the bombers pressed home their attack. It also symbolises the courage of the newly christened Few.
Eighty-eight Dornier 17's approached Deal
escorted by more than 130 Me 109's. At least 60 more Me 109's crossed the Kent
coast at Dover. Three airborne squadrons were sent to intercept - 36 British fighters against 278 enemy planes, odds of more than 7-1, fighter to fighter odds of 5-1.
It was the 60 Messerschmitts over Dover that were to meet 64 Squadron. The Squadron Combat Report well conveys the swift and dangerous environment of the ensuing battle that raged back across the Channel towards the French
coast. MacDonnell waded into four 109's destroying one before being forced to evade the attack of two more. Gilbert knocked an 109 off the tail of a Spitfire with a devastating five second burst before himself being hit.
Laws bagged his second confirmed 109 with a skilful piece of marksmanship amongst the chaos. He struck with a beam attack as the machine slowed slightly at the top of a turn. Two more three second bursts into the tail of the diving enemy turned the 109 into a flaming coffin.
This 109 was not the only light in the sky that afternoon; a Spitfire seen spinning in flames was Pilot Officer Andreae, who did not survive. Pilot Officer Roberts was also shot down but was taken prisoner on French soil.
airfield. Such was the surprise achieved that the controller at Kenley shouted "Bandits overhead!", causing the leader of 64 Squadron (20,000 feet above the airfield) to search the sky above him for the enemy aircraft. His attention was then attracted to the bomb-bursts on the airfield and 64 dived to the attack.
Events that followed have fuelled the debate over kills and claims made by the RAF and are dealt with in detail in the book "The Hardest Day" by Alfred Price. According to Price the Dornier that Squadron Leader MacDonnell claimed as a kill was actually a Messerschmitt 110. Furthermore the pilot had simply play deadplayed dead and let his aircraft drop crazily through the sky as MacDonnell pressed home the attack. His desperate measure worked and after spinning down for 6000 feet he was able to pull out and head for home. But in this case the damage sustained from MacDonnell's attack forced the pilot to crash land before crossing the English coast.
But the star of the day's drama for Price was surely a Junkers 88 that was shot out of formation by Pilot Officer Wlasnowolski of 32 Squadron. On its way down (according to Price) it attracted the attentions of a further five British fighters. Wlasnowolski claimed a Dornier as did Peter Brothers, who had recovered from a spin in time to have a pop at the Junkers. Sanders of 615 Squadron
reported a Ju 88 destroyed with assistance from another Hurricane
.
Pilot Officer O'Meara
of 64 Squadron apparently had a broader vision of the scene and admitted joining four other planes in an attack on a Ju 88 which crashed at Biggin Hill
. Adrian Laws and Flight Sergeant Gilbert seem to have administered the coup de grace
to the unfortunate bomber and added insult to the injury by claiming an He 111. It has been reckoned by Price that this single German loss was counted at least four and a half times in the British total for the day. Whatever the truth behind this incident, the bomber's crew were unable to enjoy their notoriety as they had become a part of the landscape that they had travelled so far to bomb.
(Despite his sometimes stern "auditing" of the figures, Price's is an excellent book. It contains a startling series of pictures taken by a correspondent riding in one of the planes involved in the low level attack and, as a whole, is unmatched as a study of a single day of the battle.)
Adrian Laws went on from the engagement with the mysterious Heinkel to save an unknown Hurricane pilot by removing a Me 110 from his tail and despatching it earthwards. It was the last time that Laws would kill. He himself had just six weeks left to live.
The very next day 64 Squadron move back to Leconfield and Ringway to become part of No.13 Group in the Church Fenton sector.
farm boy. Quite an unusual mix for Britain in 1940, in fact Donahue has the unique and largely unrecognised position as the first American citizen to take up arms against the Nazi menace. His diaries would published as a book before the Battle's end, "Tally-Ho! - A Yankee in a Spitfire".
Donahue joined 64 squadron on 4 August 1940. He was shot down by an Me 109 on 12 August, managing to bail out wounded. He was to spend slightly less than seven weeks recovering from his wounds. Throughout his book Donahue uses pseudonyms when referring to his fellow pilots, possibly a requirement of wartime security.
When he writes of his return to the squadron in late September we meet a character called "Andy". From the known facts it is easy to positively identify Andy as Adrian Laws.
Donahue writes "I rejoined my squadron several days before my leave expired...I learned that the heroism of some of the boys hadn't gone unrecognised. Three DFC
's and one DFM had gone to the squadron...Andy, who had four confirmed, received the DFM because he was a flight sergeant and not a commissioned officer at the time...He had worked up from the ranks to become an exceptional fighter pilot. He had just been awarded a commission as pilot officer but wasn't living in the officers' mess
yet because he hadn't yet purchased his uniform."
Moving on to 29 September, Donahue writes:
"That night Andy appeared in the officers' mess for the first time, wearing his new uniform as an officer, with the pretty, striped purple and white silk ribbon of his DFM looking very neat under his wings on the left side of his chest. If anyone deserved a commission and the right to wear the King's uniform, he did. He had been a mainstay of the squadron all through from the time of Dunkirk, acting as leader of the squadron's rear-guard section most of the time, often with pilots of higher rank following him in his section; and he had certainly served his King and Country well.
"We were all glad afterward that he got to spend that evening in the mess, and I'm glad that I spent a pleasant hour with him in his room before we went to bed, chatting with him about America
, in which he was very interested, and lending him some American magazines. We arranged that the next morning Percy, a new pilot, and I would fly with him in a section of three machines to a target range where we would do some aerial target practise.
"Next morning Andy had to give a group of new pilots some practise flying before we went to the target range; so as I was badly in need of some practise too I went for a little cross-country jaunt in my machine, familiarising myself with our present sector of operations. While I was up I could hear distant voices over the R/T
which I knew were those of Andy and the pilots he was flying with. When I heard them plainly I could tell it was usually Andy giving one of the others some order, or coaching them on their flying. I didn't pay much attention to what was being said, but I noticed that when I was returning to the airdrome Control seemed to be calling "Yellow One" and having difficulty in getting a reply.
"The leader of Yellow section was Andy, and he wasn't having trouble with his R/T. Percy ran out to meet me as I taxied in, and with agonised face told me, "Andy and Nels have collided and Andy's gone in, and it looks like there isn't much hope!"
"There wasn't. After half an hour's dumb sad waiting around the telephone in our pilots' hut we heard the story. His tail had been sheared off and his machine had gone all the way down, tumbling over and over, and for some reason he hadn't bailed out. Nels had managed to land safely at another airdrome, as his machine wasn't badly damaged.
"Just another little sacrifice among the many thousands to curb one man's savage desire for power, of course; but I think for most of us in the squadron the loss of Andy was one of the most painful we'd had to bear.
Laws and Vinyard were flying at an altitude of 3000 feet when the accident occurred at 10.45. The following is from an Air Ministry letter written to the author. The sources quoted by the Ministry were the RAF Casualty index and the P file held in archive at Hayes:
"Sgt. Vinyard reported that the two aircraft were flying semi-line abreast, semi-echelon starboard and six spans apart. The pilot of K9805 (Vinyard) closed in on P9564 (Laws). Shortly after, the under surface of the starboard mainplane of K9805 struck the top of the rear portion of the fuselage of P9564 and severed it. Immediately after the collision had occurred the entire rear portion of Laws' aircraft broke away and the aircraft went into a fast somersaulting dive and struck the ground, bursting into flames on impact. The aircraft crashed at Cranswick, 4 miles north of Leconfield, killing Laws instantly. Spitfire K9805 (Vinyard) went into a dive, but the pilot managed to gain control and land safely at Driffield
airfield.
Exactly how the accident happened is forever lost to us. The following is from another Air Ministry letter written to the author.
"On 6 October 1940 Sgt. Frederick Fenton Vinyard was on an operational section patrol with two other Spitfires of 64 Squadron in the vicinity of Flamborough Head
. The aircraft entered cloud in poor visibility (10/10ths) and the three aircraft then became separated. This was the last time that Sgt. Vinyard was seen by the other two pilots who both returned safely to base. However, at 15.10 hours a report was received from the Observer Corps that a Spitfire was seen to crash into the sea off Flamborough Head at 14.30 hours. Sgt. Vinyard is still reported as missing.
Vinyard's other two section members on that day were Flying Officer A. J. A. Laing and Pilot Officer Arthur Gerald Donahue.
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
and enlisted in the ranks of the RAF in 1931. He was promoted Flight Sergeant
Flight Sergeant
Flight sergeant is a senior non-commissioned rank in the British Royal Air Force and several other air forces which have adopted all or part of the RAF rank structure...
on 1 July 1940. He piloted a Spitfire Mark I's with 64 Squadron
No. 64 Squadron RAF
No. 64 Squadron was a squadron of the Royal Air Force. It was first formed on 1 August 1916 as a squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. It was last disbanded on 31 January 1991 at RAF Leuchars.- 1916 to 1919 :...
. Adrian Laws was killed on 30 September 1940 as the result of a collision with another Spitfire while training new arrivals at 64 Squadron.
Combat Record
- 12 June 1940 - one half of He 111 destroyed;
- 29 July 1940 - Bf 109E destroyed;
- 11 August 1940 - Bf 109E damaged;
- 13 August 1940 - Do 17 damaged;
- 15 August 1940 - Bf 109E destroyed;
- 18 August 1940 - Bf 110 and one half of He 111 destroyed.
"The King has been graciously pleased to approve the under-mentioned award, in recognition of gallantry displayed in flying operations against the enemy:-
Awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal
Distinguished Flying Medal
The Distinguished Flying Medal was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the Royal Air Force and the other services, and formerly also to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for "an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying in active...
- 514143 Flight Sergeant Adrian Francis Laws - This Airman
Airman
An airman is a member of the air component of a nation's armed service. In the United States Air Force and the Royal Air Force , it can also refer to a specific enlisted rank...
has taken part in numerous operational flights since May, 1940. He has destroyed five enemy aircraft and damaged another two. His initiative, courage and tenacity have been outstanding.
Overview
Adrian Laws was born in 1912 in East Dereham, Norfolk. Little is known about his childhood. His daughter, Susan, was born two weeks after his death).64 Squadron was also born in Norfolk, being formed in August 1916 at Sedgeford
Sedgeford
Sedgeford is a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, about 6 km south of the North Sea and east of the Wash. It is approximately north east of Cambridge.It covers an area of and had a population of 540 in 224 households as of the 2001 census....
RFC
Royal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance...
station near Fakenham
Fakenham
Fakenham is a town and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It is situated on the River Wensum, some north east of King's Lynn, south west of Cromer, and north west of Norwich....
. In October 1917 they took their DH5
Airco DH.5
-Bibliography:* Bruce, J.M. Warplanes of the First World War, Vol. 1. London: MacDonald, 1965, pp. 128–132.* Jackson, A.J. De Havilland Aircraft since 1915. London: Putnam, 1962....
's to the larger airfield at Bircham Newton
Bircham Newton
Bircham Newton is the smallest of the three villages that make up the civil parish of Bircham, in the west of the English county of Norfolk. The village is located about 1 km north of the larger village of Great Bircham, 20 km north-east of the town of King's Lynn, and 60 km...
, just ten miles down the road.
At the age of nineteen Laws enlisted in the ranks of the RAF. 64 Squadron was reformed at Heliopolis
Ilioupoli
Ilioupoli is a suburb in the south-southeastern part of metropolitan Athens, Greece.The area was made up of farmlands to the west and the central part and the rocky areas of the Hymettus to its east. Mixed farming was common in the western part. Much of the agricultural production that time was...
in 1935 during the Abyssinian crisis. Equipped with two-seater Demons
Hawker Hart
The Hawker Hart was a British two-seater biplane light bomber of the Royal Air Force , which had a prominent role during the RAF's inter-war period. The Hart was designed during the 1920s by Sydney Camm and built by Hawker Aircraft...
they were to return to the UK within 15 months.
By late 1939 Laws was flying Blenheims
Bristol Blenheim
The Bristol Blenheim was a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company that was used extensively in the early days of the Second World War. It was adapted as an interim long-range and night fighter, pending the availability of the Beaufighter...
out of Church Fenton
Church Fenton
Church Fenton is a village and civil parish in the Selby district of North Yorkshire, England. The village is home to many commuters and is served by a railway station; Church Fenton railway station. Neighbouring villages include Cawood and Ulleskelf. It is about from Tadcaster and from...
in the Leconfield
Leconfield
Leconfield is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately north west of Beverley town centre and lies on the A614 road....
sector. War had started, yet nothing seemed to be happening on the wider front. By now an extremely accomplished pilot, Laws could not have been unhappy when 64 Squadron converted to the new Spitfire Mark I.
The Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
was about to begin in earnest.
12th June 1940
Laws was blooded on this day, participating in the hunt and destruction of what appeared to be a lone He 111. The battle was still in its early days and this is reflected by the length and detail of the combat reports. Later on in the battle a more sanguine Laws is to comment "closed into attack and usual dog-fightDogfight
A dogfight, or dog fight, is a form of aerial combat between fighter aircraft; in particular, combat of maneuver at short range, where each side is aware of the other's presence. Dogfighting first appeared during World War I, shortly after the invention of the airplane...
ensued". But here, both he and Gilbert describe every twist and turn of the engagement.
The incident also shows the deadly effect of radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
and observer tracking
Radar tracker
A radar tracker is a component of a radar system, or an associated command and control system, that associates consecutive radar observations of the same target into tracks...
. The lone bomber
Bomber
A bomber is a military aircraft designed to attack ground and sea targets, by dropping bombs on them, or – in recent years – by launching cruise missiles at them.-Classifications of bombers:...
trying to sneak out at zero feet was not allowed to escape. Laws and Gilbert, supposed to fly in section, actually left the ground ten minutes apart. So it was Gilbert who found the raider first and emptied his guns into the enemy aircraft. One engine was damaged and one gunner was killed or injured.
A short time later the He 111 was to become the object of Laws' attention. He hounded the damaged bomber to wave-top height with two passes. While two other Spitfires arrived to take shots at what was now a wallowing enemy, Laws emptied his guns and watched the Heinkel settle on the water. His reluctance to leave his first kill is evident as he describes circling the plane and seeing the crew inflating their dinghy.
29th July 1940
By this time 64 Squadron were being led by Aeneas MacDonell, a man who would go on to have a distinguished RAF career. He had been heavily involved in the fighting over the convoys on 25 July. He had bagged a Ju 87 StukaJunkers Ju 87
The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka was a two-man German ground-attack aircraft...
before he himself was badly shot up in combat with a Ju 88 off Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
. MacDonnell however was unhurt and managed to land safely. MacDonell, official head of the Glengarry clan, was to say about his squadron's pilots "it's like holding a team of wild horses when there are Germans near" .
On this day the wild horses of 64 Squadron found their action amongst the German fighters when they engaged a flight of 109's over St. Margaret's Bay
St. Margaret's Bay
St. Margaret's Bay may refer to:In Canada* St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia on the South Shore of Nova Scotia* St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia , a political division* Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova ScotiaIn England...
at eight o'clock in the morning. Sadly no combat reports survive for this engagement, but we do know that 64 Squadron's Sgt. Binham was shot down, managing to force-land his aircraft safely.
Laws avenged Binham's indignity by shooting down a 109.
11th August 1940
The GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
's planned "Eagle Day
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
" was cancelled for the second day running due to the cloudy weather that prevailed. In place of this operation the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
mounted a "free chase" over Sussex. The formation consisted of more than 30 fighters and the German plan was to draw the RAF interceptors
Interceptor aircraft
An interceptor aircraft is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically to prevent missions of enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Interceptors generally rely on high speed and powerful armament in order to complete their mission as quickly as possible and set up...
away from bombing raids going into Weymouth and Portland
Weymouth and Portland
Weymouth and Portland is a local government district and borough in Dorset, England. It consists of the resort of Weymouth and the Isle of Portland, and includes the areas of Wyke Regis, Preston, Melcombe Regis, Upwey, Broadwey, Southill, Chiswell, Castletown, Fortuneswell, Radipole, Nottington,...
. Four squadrons took the bait and 64 Squadron were vectored to intercept the force as it started to make its way home.
The rear section was the first to spot the enemy who had a 5000 feet height advantage. It seems the squadron had found about half the retreating force of Me 109's. There then followed a strange processional attack by the Germans which overshot the 8 Spitfires of 64 Squadron who then pounced to their own attack. This gave them a definite advantage in the minutes that followed:
MacDonnell - "...exhausted ammunition in several dead astern bursts..."
O'Meara
James O'Meara
Squadron Leader James Joseph "Orange" O'Meara DSO, DFC & Bar was a Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace with 11 kills, two shared victories, one unconfirmed destroyed, four probables, 11 damaged and one shared damaged....
- "...attacked from astern..."
Laws - "...three second burst from dead astern..."
The 109 that Laws attacked was on the tail of Blue 1. Assuming the Messerschmitt had some ammunition left, the pilot of Blue 1 had reason to be thankful. It was Pilot Officer Gilbert, who was destined to survive the war. There is almost an air of disappointment in the description of the enemy tactics in the last paragraph of the Squadron Combat Report. They may have been largely new pilots, drafted in to replace mounting Luftwaffe losses of more experienced fighters. Or maybe they had expended too much ammunition and fuel in previous engagements and were simply running for home. The cloudy conditions meant that none of the aircraft engaged could be confirmed as destroyed.
13th August 1940 - Eagle Day
Bomber attacks were directed towards British airfields on this day but a combination of fighter resistance and thick clouds served to foil them.Also it seems that the bomber crews were suffering from frayed nerves. Laws was a member of "Flight B" when they spotted a formation that they identified as Dornier 215's. The enemy, set on a north-easterly course, needed no more persuasion than the sight of Spitfires to turn and run for home. Once on the run the formation opted simply for speed and wasted no energy on evasion. However when Laws latched onto his tail one German pilot decided to fight for his life. He led Laws into a series of steep diving turns that challenged both Laws and his Spitfire to keep up. A lesser pilot would have been thrown off; Laws clung on. The German, with his rear gunner disabled from the initial attack, may have believed he'd done enough to lose his tormentor and straightened up to dive for cloud. He reached the cloud, but on his way collected more Spitfire ordnance in his fuselage.
15th August 1940 - The coining of "The Few"
This day saw the christening of a legend as ChurchillWinston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
grumbled his way through one of his most famous speeches in the Commons. At last the country had a label, and the label was to stick - The Few.
The results of the engagements that took place on the 15th can be seen as a victory for the escorting German fighters in as much as they held back the intercepting British fighters and the bombers pressed home their attack. It also symbolises the courage of the newly christened Few.
Eighty-eight Dornier 17's approached Deal
Deal, Kent
Deal is a town in Kent England. It lies on the English Channel eight miles north-east of Dover and eight miles south of Ramsgate. It is a former fishing, mining and garrison town...
escorted by more than 130 Me 109's. At least 60 more Me 109's crossed the Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
coast at Dover. Three airborne squadrons were sent to intercept - 36 British fighters against 278 enemy planes, odds of more than 7-1, fighter to fighter odds of 5-1.
It was the 60 Messerschmitts over Dover that were to meet 64 Squadron. The Squadron Combat Report well conveys the swift and dangerous environment of the ensuing battle that raged back across the Channel towards the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
coast. MacDonnell waded into four 109's destroying one before being forced to evade the attack of two more. Gilbert knocked an 109 off the tail of a Spitfire with a devastating five second burst before himself being hit.
Laws bagged his second confirmed 109 with a skilful piece of marksmanship amongst the chaos. He struck with a beam attack as the machine slowed slightly at the top of a turn. Two more three second bursts into the tail of the diving enemy turned the 109 into a flaming coffin.
This 109 was not the only light in the sky that afternoon; a Spitfire seen spinning in flames was Pilot Officer Andreae, who did not survive. Pilot Officer Roberts was also shot down but was taken prisoner on French soil.
18th August 1940 - The Hardest Day
On this day a low level flight of Dorniers from the Luftwaffe's 9th Staffel and another force of Junkers 88's, combined with a higher level bombing group of more Dorniers to completely fox the defences and deal out severe damage to KenleyKenley
Kenley is a district in the south of the London Borough of Croydon. It borders Purley, Coulsdon, Riddlesdown, Caterham and Whyteleafe. Kenley is situated 13 miles south of Charing Cross. The 2001 census showed Kenley having a population of 13,525....
airfield. Such was the surprise achieved that the controller at Kenley shouted "Bandits overhead!", causing the leader of 64 Squadron (20,000 feet above the airfield) to search the sky above him for the enemy aircraft. His attention was then attracted to the bomb-bursts on the airfield and 64 dived to the attack.
Events that followed have fuelled the debate over kills and claims made by the RAF and are dealt with in detail in the book "The Hardest Day" by Alfred Price. According to Price the Dornier that Squadron Leader MacDonnell claimed as a kill was actually a Messerschmitt 110. Furthermore the pilot had simply play deadplayed dead and let his aircraft drop crazily through the sky as MacDonnell pressed home the attack. His desperate measure worked and after spinning down for 6000 feet he was able to pull out and head for home. But in this case the damage sustained from MacDonnell's attack forced the pilot to crash land before crossing the English coast.
But the star of the day's drama for Price was surely a Junkers 88 that was shot out of formation by Pilot Officer Wlasnowolski of 32 Squadron. On its way down (according to Price) it attracted the attentions of a further five British fighters. Wlasnowolski claimed a Dornier as did Peter Brothers, who had recovered from a spin in time to have a pop at the Junkers. Sanders of 615 Squadron
No. 615 Squadron RAF
No. 615 Squadron was a unit of the British Auxiliary Air Force and later the Royal Auxiliary Air Force between 1937 and 1957.-Formation and early years:...
reported a Ju 88 destroyed with assistance from another Hurricane
Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force...
.
Pilot Officer O'Meara
James O'Meara
Squadron Leader James Joseph "Orange" O'Meara DSO, DFC & Bar was a Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace with 11 kills, two shared victories, one unconfirmed destroyed, four probables, 11 damaged and one shared damaged....
of 64 Squadron apparently had a broader vision of the scene and admitted joining four other planes in an attack on a Ju 88 which crashed at Biggin Hill
Biggin Hill
Biggin Hill is an area and electoral ward in the outskirts of the London Borough of Bromley in southeast London, United Kingdom.-History:Historically the settlement was known as Aperfield and formed part of the parish of Cudham...
. Adrian Laws and Flight Sergeant Gilbert seem to have administered the coup de grace
Coup de grâce
The expression coup de grâce means a death blow intended to end the suffering of a wounded creature. The phrase can refer to the killing of civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies, with or without the consent of the sufferer...
to the unfortunate bomber and added insult to the injury by claiming an He 111. It has been reckoned by Price that this single German loss was counted at least four and a half times in the British total for the day. Whatever the truth behind this incident, the bomber's crew were unable to enjoy their notoriety as they had become a part of the landscape that they had travelled so far to bomb.
(Despite his sometimes stern "auditing" of the figures, Price's is an excellent book. It contains a startling series of pictures taken by a correspondent riding in one of the planes involved in the low level attack and, as a whole, is unmatched as a study of a single day of the battle.)
Adrian Laws went on from the engagement with the mysterious Heinkel to save an unknown Hurricane pilot by removing a Me 110 from his tail and despatching it earthwards. It was the last time that Laws would kill. He himself had just six weeks left to live.
The very next day 64 Squadron move back to Leconfield and Ringway to become part of No.13 Group in the Church Fenton sector.
Death
We are lucky to have a first hand account of the death of Adrian Laws written by one of his fellow pilots. Arthur Gerald Donahue, Pilot Officer and AmericanAmerican ethnicity
American ethnicity differs from United States nationality. An individual's nationality is American if he or she is a national of the United States of America. The circumstances under which a person is ethnically American are less clear....
farm boy. Quite an unusual mix for Britain in 1940, in fact Donahue has the unique and largely unrecognised position as the first American citizen to take up arms against the Nazi menace. His diaries would published as a book before the Battle's end, "Tally-Ho! - A Yankee in a Spitfire".
Donahue joined 64 squadron on 4 August 1940. He was shot down by an Me 109 on 12 August, managing to bail out wounded. He was to spend slightly less than seven weeks recovering from his wounds. Throughout his book Donahue uses pseudonyms when referring to his fellow pilots, possibly a requirement of wartime security.
When he writes of his return to the squadron in late September we meet a character called "Andy". From the known facts it is easy to positively identify Andy as Adrian Laws.
Donahue writes "I rejoined my squadron several days before my leave expired...I learned that the heroism of some of the boys hadn't gone unrecognised. Three DFC
Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom)
The Distinguished Flying Cross is a military decoration awarded to personnel of the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force and other services, and formerly to officers of other Commonwealth countries, for "an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying in active operations against...
's and one DFM had gone to the squadron...Andy, who had four confirmed, received the DFM because he was a flight sergeant and not a commissioned officer at the time...He had worked up from the ranks to become an exceptional fighter pilot. He had just been awarded a commission as pilot officer but wasn't living in the officers' mess
Mess
A mess is the place where military personnel socialise, eat, and live. In some societies this military usage has extended to other disciplined services eateries such as civilian fire fighting and police forces. The root of mess is the Old French mes, "portion of food" A mess (also called a...
yet because he hadn't yet purchased his uniform."
Moving on to 29 September, Donahue writes:
"That night Andy appeared in the officers' mess for the first time, wearing his new uniform as an officer, with the pretty, striped purple and white silk ribbon of his DFM looking very neat under his wings on the left side of his chest. If anyone deserved a commission and the right to wear the King's uniform, he did. He had been a mainstay of the squadron all through from the time of Dunkirk, acting as leader of the squadron's rear-guard section most of the time, often with pilots of higher rank following him in his section; and he had certainly served his King and Country well.
"We were all glad afterward that he got to spend that evening in the mess, and I'm glad that I spent a pleasant hour with him in his room before we went to bed, chatting with him about America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, in which he was very interested, and lending him some American magazines. We arranged that the next morning Percy, a new pilot, and I would fly with him in a section of three machines to a target range where we would do some aerial target practise.
"Next morning Andy had to give a group of new pilots some practise flying before we went to the target range; so as I was badly in need of some practise too I went for a little cross-country jaunt in my machine, familiarising myself with our present sector of operations. While I was up I could hear distant voices over the R/T
RT
-Computers:* Ralink Technology, a Wi-Fi chipset manufacturer from Taiwan* Ray tracing * Ray tracing * Register transfer, a description of digital circuits* Request Tracker, an open-source ticketing system...
which I knew were those of Andy and the pilots he was flying with. When I heard them plainly I could tell it was usually Andy giving one of the others some order, or coaching them on their flying. I didn't pay much attention to what was being said, but I noticed that when I was returning to the airdrome Control seemed to be calling "Yellow One" and having difficulty in getting a reply.
"The leader of Yellow section was Andy, and he wasn't having trouble with his R/T. Percy ran out to meet me as I taxied in, and with agonised face told me, "Andy and Nels have collided and Andy's gone in, and it looks like there isn't much hope!"
"There wasn't. After half an hour's dumb sad waiting around the telephone in our pilots' hut we heard the story. His tail had been sheared off and his machine had gone all the way down, tumbling over and over, and for some reason he hadn't bailed out. Nels had managed to land safely at another airdrome, as his machine wasn't badly damaged.
"Just another little sacrifice among the many thousands to curb one man's savage desire for power, of course; but I think for most of us in the squadron the loss of Andy was one of the most painful we'd had to bear.
The Accident
The character described as "Nels" in Donahue's account was in fact Sgt. Frederick Fenton Vinyard. This 24 year old from Birmingham had joined 64 Squadron on 15 September. Laws was flying Spitfire P9564 and Vinyard piloted K9805. Both were acting as a target formation for a section of Spitfires who were carrying out practise fighter attacks. Who the other pilots were is not recorded, but it is known that Sgt. Hopgood, Sgt. Limpenny and Pilot Officer Stanley were new arrivals at 64 Squadron at the end of September. They may well have made up the "attacking section".Laws and Vinyard were flying at an altitude of 3000 feet when the accident occurred at 10.45. The following is from an Air Ministry letter written to the author. The sources quoted by the Ministry were the RAF Casualty index and the P file held in archive at Hayes:
"Sgt. Vinyard reported that the two aircraft were flying semi-line abreast, semi-echelon starboard and six spans apart. The pilot of K9805 (Vinyard) closed in on P9564 (Laws). Shortly after, the under surface of the starboard mainplane of K9805 struck the top of the rear portion of the fuselage of P9564 and severed it. Immediately after the collision had occurred the entire rear portion of Laws' aircraft broke away and the aircraft went into a fast somersaulting dive and struck the ground, bursting into flames on impact. The aircraft crashed at Cranswick, 4 miles north of Leconfield, killing Laws instantly. Spitfire K9805 (Vinyard) went into a dive, but the pilot managed to gain control and land safely at Driffield
Driffield
Driffield, also known as Great Driffield, is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The civil parish is formed by the town of Driffield and the village of Little Driffield....
airfield.
Exactly how the accident happened is forever lost to us. The following is from another Air Ministry letter written to the author.
"On 6 October 1940 Sgt. Frederick Fenton Vinyard was on an operational section patrol with two other Spitfires of 64 Squadron in the vicinity of Flamborough Head
Flamborough Head
Flamborough Head is a promontory of on the Yorkshire coast of England, between the Filey and Bridlington bays of the North Sea. It is a chalk headland, and the resistance it offers to coastal erosion may be contrasted with the low coast of Holderness to the south...
. The aircraft entered cloud in poor visibility (10/10ths) and the three aircraft then became separated. This was the last time that Sgt. Vinyard was seen by the other two pilots who both returned safely to base. However, at 15.10 hours a report was received from the Observer Corps that a Spitfire was seen to crash into the sea off Flamborough Head at 14.30 hours. Sgt. Vinyard is still reported as missing.
Vinyard's other two section members on that day were Flying Officer A. J. A. Laing and Pilot Officer Arthur Gerald Donahue.