27 October – 72 years ago

46 Squadron, Beaufighters, Idku, North Africa, October 27th 1943. My father had a rather busy day. I love the laconic entry of the first paragraph. If that had happened at the start of my day I think only three pages would suffice!

One of 252 Sqdn’s Beaufighters crashed on take off early this morning, about 200 yards from our tent, ammo going off for approx. 1 hour. Both got out OK.

Briefed at 2.30 pm for Naval escort to 1 cruiser and 3 destroyers off Castelrosso, which turned out to be quite exciting.

Four of us – F/Lt Dudley Arundel, F/O Arthur Horsfall, W/O Boswell and self – airborne at 16.15, me leading the second section with Boswell as my No 2. Found convoy OK, but at 18.00 hrs we were vectored by the cruiser for a ‘bunch’ of hostiles approaching from the west, and at 12000’ we climbed to 13000’ then we saw 15 (!!) JU88s in very close formation, heading towards us. We peeled off and attacked from the beam. Heavy return fire was observed. I only managed to get in one attack, before they all turned and headed for home at full throttle. F/Lt Arundel damaged 2, Arthur damaged one. I must have hit something, but didn’t claim anything. Returned to convoy to find a hostile dropped flares, but he buzzed off.

He also wrote about the incident later. This is how it appears in his memoirs, ‘Flying Blind’, which is published by Fonthill Media (2014) and also available on Amazon:

That same afternoon we were briefed at 1400 hrs for last light cover naval escort of a cruiser and three destroyers around Castelrosso Island, heading for the Turkish coast. Four of us in the flight, Dudley Arundel (leading), Art Horsfall, Boswell and myself, plus RO’s, were airborne at 16.14. I was leading the second section with Boswell as my number two. We found the convoy easily despite the bad weather, but as dusk fell, at 1800 hours, the cruiser in RT touch with us vectored us to a bunch of hostiles approaching from the West at 12,000 feet. Arundel immediately ordered the planes to fly at 13,000 feet. The bunch of hostiles came into view and, to our astonishment, we saw fifteen Ju 88’s in a very tight V-shaped formation heading directly to attack the convoy, a frightening sight. The four of us peeled off and attacked them from the beam and from behind. There was heavy return fire but all four Beaus fired their four cannons and six machine guns, causing such havoc among the enemy that they scattered and fled for home at full throttle the way they had come. Flt Lt Arundel and Arthur, the front pair in the attack, claimed aircraft damaged: Arundel two, Horsfall one. In the second wave I thought I may have damaged one, but owing to the confused state of the encounter I didn’t claim anything later. The light was very poor with lots of cloud about and I couldn’t be definite about it. We could not get close enough to follow up and split the formation: our Beau’s were too slow. However, we all felt satisfied that we had driven off a potentially dangerous group of bandits. The return fire from the Ju 88s had been heavy, and it inflicted some damage to two of our Beaufighters. WO Boswell had to return to base on one engine. In fact, it turned out that he had been particularly lucky: one bullet passed through the Perspex only one inch from his head. I was lucky not to be hit, but as far as I was concerned, it was the first time I had been fired at by the enemy, and it was quite an experience. We returned to the convoy to find a hostile dropping flares, but he saw us coming and buzzed off