Dave Dawson in Libya

by Robert Sidney Bowen

"So's mine!" Freddy shouted back. "Right-o, Dave! Let's get another of the beggars. Attack our fleet, will they! Up at the rotters, Dave!"

Even as Freddy was shouting the words, Dave had cut the Skua off to the right, then whipped it over and down in a lightning-like half roll. There, directly below his diving nose, was another 88. He opened fire at once, then curved up and away so that Freddy could rake the plane from nose to tail as they raced past. The Nazi craft didn't burst into flame. Instead, it rolled over in the air like a tired bird. For a moment or so it hovered on its back. Then it fell off on one wing, and down. White puffs began to appear off to the side, well below the crippled plane slowly slip-sliding downward to its final end in the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean. The white puffs were the parachute envelopes of the pilots and crew members who had bailed out of the helpless craft.

Neither Dave nor Freddy, however, gave them so much as a second glance. The first group of the dive-bombing Junkers had been broken up. At least ten of them had been put out of the war for keeps, and the others were beating a hasty retreat to the west. The Heinkels, however, had not come down. They had gone up for more altitude instead, and had tried to race beyond the defending Victory fighters and reach their objectives far to the east.

They had tried, yes, but they had not succeeded. The sections in back of Dave's section had climbed swiftly up to meet those Heinkels and by sheer fighting power had forced them to turn off toward the north—that is, all but two of them. Two Heinkels had somehow broken through the barrier of defending Skuas and were now thundering down to level bomb the Victory far below.

Nazi though they might be, Dave could not help but feel a certain amount of admiration for the pilots and crews. It was a suicide attack they were about to make, and they obviously knew it. With all hope of reaching the British fleet blasted by the furious defense of the Victory's planes, two of those Heinkel pilots had decided to do what they could against the Victory below. To have continued on eastward would simply have meant a short passing of time before the speedy Skuas caught up with them and shot them out of the air. And so they had elected to do what damage they could to the Victory, and unquestionably they would pay for it with their lives.

"You've got to hand it to them," Dave muttered somewhat reluctantly as he sent his Skua hurtling downward. "At least that's two of Goering's guys who have what it takes. Too bad they signed up to play on the wrong team!"

A moment later, however, all feeling of sympathy and admiration was gone. The Victory was down there, and the enemy was wing howling down to blow it out of the water, if such a miracle could be performed. There were pals of Dave's down there on that carrier, pals who would risk their lives any day to save him. It was up to him to risk his, now, to save them. The diving Heinkels ceased to be airplanes manned by human beings like himself. They became in his mind two winged machines of death and destruction hurtling down to snuff out the lives of his pals and fellow officers.

And so he braced himself in the seat and dropped the Skua's nose down to the vertical. The Bristol engine in the nose screamed out its song of power, and the air rushing past set up a shrill constant whistle. Hunching forward, Dave pressed hard against his safety belt harness, tightened the muscles of his stomach, kept his mouth open and continually swallowed to reduce the air pressure in his ears. But all the time he kept his eyes riveted on the nearest diving Heinkel.

It all took up but a few brief seconds, and then he was streaking down on top of the German bomber. Its gunners opened up with everything they had, and the air in front of Dave's nose was filled with the wavy streams of tracer smoke. He did not veer to the left or right for an instant. He held his ship steady until a vital part of the bomber was square in his sights. Then he let out a yell and jabbed his trigger button. The four Vickers guns cowled into the leading edge of the wing, two on each side of the nose, and yammered out their song of destruction.

For what seemed an hour to Dave's tightly knotted nerves, the Heinkel continued on down in its dive. In reality it was not longer than it would take you to snap your fingers before smoke and flame belched out from the bomber to envelop it completely. It continued on down in its dive, however. But it slammed straight down into the water a good five miles astern of the zigzagging Victory.