Spitfire Patrol (Supermarine Spitfire) by Philip West

One summers evening, Douglas Bader (flying the Mk V Spitfire without cannons) and Johnnie Johnson (flying the Mk VB Spitfire with cannons) of the Tangmere Wing, share a few moments of peaceful flying whilst on patrol over the English Channel.

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Sqn. Ldr. A M Charlesworth DFC joined the RAF straight from school just before his 18th birthday in the summer of 1940 with the sole purpose of becoming a fighter pilot.
After training, at age just 18, he was posted to RAF Ibsley, Hampshire, to 118 Sqdn, flying Spitfire 2Bs. Here he took part in his first scramble.
After a month he was posted where the action was thickest, to a II Group Station, RAF Kenley, where he joined 602 Sqdn.
His Squadron Commander was Al Dere, by this time a highly decorated ace; Al was 23 then and had already been shot down nine times.

602 Squadron was equipped with the more advanced Spitfire VBs which had two 20mm cannons, firing at 1200 rounds a minute, plus four very useful Browning 50mm machine guns firing at an even higher rate per minute.
Al Dere was eventually posted to another squadron and Paddy Finucane took over – “possibly the finest fighter pilot I came across”, Max. Charlesworth continues,

“ I remember him trying to get his 21st victory before his 21st birthday and I often flew No. 2 to him.

These were twitchy and tiring days when three sweeps a over occupied France day were the norm, to be met each time by several hundred Me 109s and Focke Wolf 190s, at our maximum range, where hectic dog fights ensued. We were normally outnumbered and a day could last from an early morning call at 3.30am to the last landing at 10.30pm in the semi-dark of the long summer of 1941.

The average age of the approximately 30 pilots on the squadron was always about 19.”

During this period they were scrambled to search for and attack the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau (although they didn’t know it at the time) which, with escorting vessels had slipped up the Channel from Brest. The weather was awful and Max flew straight across the German battle cruiser “Hipper” thinking it was a Royal Navy cruiser.

The “Hipper” opened up at Max with guns blazing but he was fortunate to escape with just a hole in one wing.

In April 1942 Max was posted to a secret unit called MSFU (Merchant Service Fighter Unit) where he flew Hurricanes from catapults on merchant ships attached to convoys of anything up to fifty merchant men a time. The ships were mainly bringing supplies from America and taking them to Murmansk and Archangel, the hard-pressed Soviets and Gibraltar.

Max recalls this as a highly physical and uncomfortable task, apart from also being very scary. The ships were constantly attacked by U Boat packs and aircraft. When they were in range of the latter, if they launched the Hurricane they knew they would ultimately have to bail out and hope to be picked up by either a friendly escort vessel or a sunken ships lifeboat.

“The North Atlantic route to Canada, north of Iceland and down the Greenland coast at an average sped of six knots in appalling seas was not our idea of a holiday cruise”, Max vividly recalls.

Having survived this posting Max was then moved to 124 Sq. at West Malting, Near Maidstone, Kent. The squadron was equipped with the much more powerful Spitfire IXs.

Their task here was mainly escorting USAF and RAF bombing raids into Europe.

With long-range tanks fitted they were able to reach Hamburg and Ludwigshafen; later on they were able to refuel from liberated bases in France.

These ops. required them to fly as ‘Top Cover’ at over 30,000 feet for up to three hours, where it was so cold the pilots returned to base hardly able to climb out of their cockpits.

On February 9th 1945 Max was the Senior Flight Commander on 124 Squadron during their move to Cottishall. Here they adapted the Spitfire IXs to dive-bombing.

The Spitfires carried either a 500lb. bomb under the fuselage and two 250lbs. under each wing or, a 90-gallon fuel tank under the fuselage and a 250lb. bomb under each wing.

Their mission was to destroy V2 sites in Holland – mainly situated in small parks near the centre of the Hague. These V2 sites were launching rockets on London in ever increasing numbers.

As well as attacking the V2 sites they were to destroy railway lines used by the Germans to transport V2s into the area.

These were dangerous times as the V2s sites were heavily defended by 88mm guns down to 20mm. “The flak was horrendous and we lost many” recalls Max. As Senior Flight Commander,

Max often led the squadron, though identifying targets from 12,000 feet was difficult.

After the war Max was one of the first pilots to convert to the Meteor twin-engined jet,

later to move on to Vampires and Canberras. His flying career was completed in June 1961 when he was posted to Warsaw, Poland as the Assistant Air Attache.

He finally retired from the RAF in 1966.

Spitfire Patrol Supermarine Spitfire

Footnote: Max’s signature is short and rather indistinct due to a medical condition which made signing difficult for him.