Dread, drugs and their horrifying toll on the Few
The legend of the Battle of Britain might be famous, but its fearful reality is less so, writes Simon Pearson
Eighty years ago today, the Luftwaffe mounted a series of attacks on shipping convoys in the English Channel, marking the start of the Battle of Britain. Over the next four months, a nations’ eyes looked to the skies, watching its brave young pilots fight to the death in defence of the realm.
Hundreds of books – and many popular films – have augmented the legend of how these airmen saved the country from a Nazi invasion in 1940. But you will rarely find references to fear, anxiety and unimaginable stress.
Imagine sitting in a tin can full of petrol, 10,000ft above the earth, while the enemy sprayed you with their guns. That is the terrifying reality these young men faced – a constant, gnawing fear they were forced to hide from their superiors for fear of being branded as having ‘LMF’ (lack of moral fibre).
One of those called on to fight that summer was Sub-lieutenant Anthony ‘Steady’ Tuke, a pilot with the Fleet Air Arm who was just 19. He flew a singleengine Fairey Albacore torpedo bomber to attack German invasion barges massing in French ports.
The aircraft was an unwieldy and outdated biplane known to its crews as the Applecore and extremely vulnerable to modern German fighters.
Unlike his bomber, and as his nickname suggests, Tuke was a solid, reliable man.
But he bore the acute psychological scars of combat.
Tuke features in a new book, Battle of
Britain, The Pilots and Planes that made History that I wrote with Ed Gorman, telling the stories of 18 airmen, nine from each side, who flew 18 different types of aircraft on 18 different days between July 10, the date on which the battle started according to British records, and October 31, the date it ended.
A candid and courageous man, Tuke won the Distinguished Service Cross at the height of the battle and continued flying on the front line for a further four years in Europe, East Africa, North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Many years later, Tuke admitted the experience had almost broken him. The strain left him with what was known in RAF slang as ‘twitch’ – body tremors from operational stress. “I wanted the war to end as soon as possible, I’d had enough,” he said. “I didn’t think I could go on.” He was not alone. In the summer of 1940, some pilots were “flying high” on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol to stave off fear and exhaustion. For the RAF in south east England, it was predominantly beer and whisky; for the Luftwaffe crews in northern France and the Low Countries, wine and schnapps. A bluff heartiness often masked the anxiety of pilots who faced the prospect of being burnt alive or seriously disfigured. The RAF lost 1,542 airmen during the battle, with 422 men wounded, while the Luftwaffe lost 2,585, with 735 wounded and 925 taken prisoner. RAF crews referred to fallen comrades as having “gone for a Burton”, a morbid conflation of going out for a beer – a Burton Ale – and going out forever. According to Sinclair Mckay, author of The Secret Life of Fighter Command, pilots were routinely inebriated: “The drinking stories – the rural taverns, the cheerful after-hours lock ins … the enormous quantities consumed – make you wonder how these men could possibly function before dawn the next day. Many of them must surely have been drunk, come first light. Perhaps, for some, that was the best way to approach the next day’s flying.”
Doctors on both sides gave amphetamines. Benzedrine was dispensed by the RAF. The Germans used Pervitin, crystal meth, which became known as “pilot’s chocolate”.
The drug had a profound impact on some Luftwaffe pilots, giving them seemingly superhuman resistance to tiredness, but it was not long before disturbing side-effects became apparent: an inability to sleep, psychotic phases, even suicides. The problems associated with addiction, ranging from hallucinations to depression, could last for years if the airman survived.
The British Medical Journal later questioned the use of amphetamines. The best treatment, it said, was “natural sleep”.
Flying four or five sorties each day, many pilots had little opportunity for sleep and suffered from battle fatigue – known as “shell shock” in the First World War and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) today.
Eighty years ago, there was little official understanding of the debilitating nature of mental trauma, and the RAF took a firm line with “psychiatric casualties”. In March 1940 the service introduced “Lack of Moral Fibre (LMF)”, a punitive designation that stigmatised airmen who refused to fly without a medical reason.
They were stripped of their rank and privileges and were usually thrown out of the service as fast as possible. Senior RAF officers believed that anxiety was contagious and were alarmed by the number of cases at a time when there was a shortage of pilots. The RAF recorded about 250 cases in 1940, most in August and September at the height of the Battle of Britain.
Across the Channel, the Luftwaffe suffered similar problems. A growing number of aircraft turned back from raids because of questionable technical difficulties. And there was a rising number of visits to medical facilities because of doubtful illnesses such as appendicitis. The Germans called it ‘Kanalkrankheit’, or Channel Sickness.
Like many pilots, Steady Tuke suffered from the stresses of flying on the aerial front line. He flew 110 combat sorties and was twice decorated for exemplary gallantry.
The first occasion was on Sept 11, 1940, when Tuke flew in a formation of six Albacores from 826 Naval Air Squadron, escorted by twin-engined Blenheims. As he approached Calais at 10,000ft, he could see German fighters taking off below him.
In a gravelly, sometimes hesitant voice recorded by the Imperial War Museum in 2006, Tuke recalled the action. “The first I knew about it,” he said, “was tracer bullets passing through the cockpit either side of my head … they damaged the engine, the air gunner was injured in the shoulder. And the observer got it in the head.”
Indeed, it was a remarkable achievement that he succeeded in nursing the aircraft back to his base in Norfolk. The main spar was shot away; the upper aileron was jammed, the petrol tank holed and both tyres punctured.
Tuke died aged 89 in 2010. But one of his two sons, Adam, discussed his war record with us.
“The subject of mental stress or fatigue is very pertinent in the current climate, although previous generations tended to ignore it wherever possible,” he said.
“Dad clearly did suffer from twitch, as he readily admitted in later life, but I’m sure at the time he and others tried to gloss over such symptoms. I do know that in 1944 he returned from a patrol to HMS Shah and the ship’s medical officer met him and grounded him straight away, saying his war was over.”
Tuke’s memories of the conflict stayed with him for the rest of his life, as they did with all the survivors. As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the battle, it is perhaps a moment to remember the stresses faced in 1940 by men such as Anthony Tuke, and the terrifying memories they took with them to their grave.
‘Dad suffered from ‘twitch’ but tried to gloss over it’