Dogfight by Adam Claasen

a short jaunt in a Spitfire to West Malling, Kent, to see his friend: ‘It was the last time I saw him alive.’
    The deaths of Allen and Way in quick succession, on 24 and 25 July respectively, hit Gray and the squadron hard. Both men were accomplished pilots and widely regarded as leaders. Allen was a quiet, religious man and at first glance seemed a little out place in the ‘bloodthirsty atmosphere’ prevailing the squadron—he was often found with his nose in his bible in squadron downtime—but his bravery and ability behind the controls of a Spitfire were undeniable. On 24 July, the DFC recipient’s engine was damaged in a dogfight over the Thames Estuary. He was seen gliding to Margate when the engine kicked into life, only to fail again: his machine stalled and the twenty-two-year-old was killed on impact. ‘With eight enemy aircraft destroyed to his credit, and many others probably destroyed and damaged, Johnny had at last been struck down,’ wrote Deere, ‘a tragedy for the squadron and a sad day for his family and many friends.’[10] When ‘Wonky’ Way was killed, the morale of the squadron pilots sunk to a new low. Some pilots were particularly embittered by the loss of such good pilots and friends, who were not outfought but outnumbered.[11]
    Each man dealt with the death of fellow airman on his own terms, but there was a general tendency towards a ‘nonchalance and a touch of manufactured, protective heartlessness’.[12] Few pilots at the time or afterwards were willing to dwell on the loss of so many friends and colleagues. ‘At the end of the day we went off to the village pub or the mess and had a few drinks’ and thought briefly about those absent from the gathering, recalled Keith Lawrence of Invercargill, but in the end ‘it was just part of the job ... you didn’t seem to dwell on it’.[13]
    Many airmen often took the view, as expressed in an epitaph for one pilot, ‘that it is better to forget and smile than to remember and be sad’.[14] ‘The death of a friend,’ wrote one pilot, ‘provided food for a few moments of thought, before the next swirling dogfight began to distract the ... mind from the stupid thoughts of sadness or pity ... the art was to cheat the Reaper and perhaps blunt his scythe a little.’[15]
    Those that remained in 54 Squadron were now physically and emotionally spread thin. The squadron had flown more sorties than any other and was reaching its operational limits. Over the month of July, Grayhad notched up a remarkable sixty-eight sorties. Orders from Dowding had the squadron sent north to Catterick for a break.
    Leave was a vital component in maintaining the fighting abilities of the squadron. Time away from the battlefield enabled pilots to forget the horrors of the war in the air. For many pilots there was plenty to see and do. As Lawrence noted, ‘All these English towns were lovely places to look around and at the history, the buildings, it was so unlike New Zealand.’[16] Many pilots had relatives, while other stayed on large estates opened to the pilots in order to get them away from the battlefield. Paterson was able to get away from the front lines to an earl’s estate in Scotland and spent much of his time hiking and hunting. He was in his element and bagged three stags.[17] Gard’ner, before his mauling during the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ had taken a shine to ice skating, which he picked up while stationed in Scotland. The Canadians in the squadron played in a local ice hockey league and, by his own confession ‘not much of pub crawler’, the young New Zealander spent much of his time watching and learning from Canadian speedsters.[18] While Gard’ner and others found diversions in the picturesque countryside, many more gravitated to the hedonistic pleasures of British towns and cities.
Blowing off Steam
    Most Anzacs in the Second