Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE BIG SATURDAY READ:
Radio communication between pilot Flight Lieutenant Nicholas Cooke and gunner Acting Corporal Albert Lippett was drowned out by the pounding of enemy fire, their own fire, and the screaming wind, as they chased down the German Heinkel.
Yet slicing through clouds at 4,000ft with a team of fellow fighters, Cooke intuitively knew when to hold steady as Lippett, behind him in the machine gun turret, aimed and fired. The other gunners did the same.
In those fleeting seconds amid the cloying mist over Dunkirk, Cooke could see the whites of the Germans’ eyes. And he could clearly see their fear, too.
“I could see the pilot and navigator duck at each burst,” he wrote in his combat report.
“Then the enemy aircraft engines went on fire and stalled.
The enemy aircraft burst into flames on landing.”
Two days later – May 29, 1940 – Cambridge rower Cooke, 26, and factory worker Lippett, 37, took down eight aircraft, which earned them the title of Ace, making them the Second World War’s first Aces in a single day.
Cooke told a reporter: “It was like knocking apples off a tree.”
Cooke, Lippett and others from 264 Squadron – flying Boulton Paul Defiant aircraft – provided vital aerial cover to the 47,000 Allied troops who left Dunkirk that day.
Operating alongside Spitfires and Hurricanes, 264 Squadron reportedly took down 38 enemy aircraft on May 29. It is a record that still stands.
They lost none of their own machines, and just one man – and that was an accident.
He mistakenly bailed out amid the confusion of battle thinking his hit aircraft was finished. In fact his intrepid pilot, Pilot Officer Desmond Kay, managed to get it home.
In total, over the course of the evacuation, 264 Squadron took down 65 aircraft, more than any other squadron, and lost just eight.
We are well-versed in the evacuation of Dunkirk; the historic nine-day rescue of some 338,226 troops by the Royal Navy and 800 intrepid “Little Ships” who came to their aid.
But as we mark the 80th anniversary of the “miracle” of Operation Dynamo this week, it is important to recognise the huge contribution of 264 Squadron and its Boulton Paul Defiants, overshadowed in history by the iconic Hurricane and Spitfire.
The Defiant, with a central turret armed with four Browning machine guns, played a crucial role in protecting the ships and men below, allowing so many to escape.
Cooke and Lippett’s victory celebrations on May 29 were short-lived. Two days later their aircraft was shot to smithereens and the men reported missing. They were never found.
Author Robert Verkaik tells in his latest book Defiant: The Untold Story of the Battle of Britain, how the