The Lone Wolf
Richard Playne Stevens is an all but ‘unknown’ hero of the Blitz, but was its leading night fighter ‘ace’
Read the story of Britain’s ‘night fighter ace’
As the Luftwaffe moved away from mass daylight bombing operations against Britain during September 1940, the RAF faced a dilemma. Thus far it had scant night-fighting capabilities. Such assets that RAF Fighter Command had were virtually untested and untried, although there had been initial success with Airborne Interception radar (AI) mounted in Blenheim aircraft of the Fighter Interception Unit during July 1940. However the Luftwaffe recognised that cover of darkness provided better protection for its aircraft operating over Britain given the paucity of its night defences. Essentially such defences comprised antiaircraft artillery and barrage balloons.
Fighter defence, for the most part, comprised RAF day fighters sent aloft to search for enemy aircraft in what was mostly a futile and desperate exercise. But, if the secret weapon of Airborne Interception radar was to ultimately change Britain’s night-time air defence, there was yet a stopgap ‘secret weapon’ – the
‘Cat’s Eyes’ fighter pilot.
Most who have some knowledge of the 1939-45 air war will surely tell you, without hesitation, that ‘Cat’s Eyes’ was Group Captain John Cunningham. In that belief, they would only be partly correct. True, it was a moniker attached to Cunningham in light of his success as a night fighter. Cunningham himself later explained how it came about, dispelling any notion he was a ‘Cat’s Eyes’ pilot, “Flight Lieutenant Richard Stevens was the only night fighter pilot who achieved success at night solely by the use of his own eyes.
“Because of the need for secrecy over radar, the press named me ‘Cat’s Eyes’. However it was Stevens who was unique in being the only really successful and true ‘Cat’s Eyes’ night fighter pilot in the whole of the RAF. It is he, and not I, who should be celebrated as such.”
But just who was Richard Playne Stevens, the ‘unknown’ night fighter ace and the stopgap ‘secret weapon’?
On a moonlit night in September 1916 the Dartford searchlights were probing to find the Zeppelin airship Schütte-lanz II as it drifted up the Thames Estuary. Brothers James and Richard Stevens were asleep in their cottage near Gravesend when their mother called, “Boys, quick! He’s coming down on fire!” James recalled, “We rushed to the bedroom window to watch, and then how we all cheered as the airship split into two angry red balls of fire and fell to the ground north of the river.”
They had witnessed the first successful night fighter interception in history over British soil, carried out by Lieutenant William Leeferobinson who was later awarded the VC for his action. Twenty-five years later Richard would rise to become the RAF’S greatest night fighter pilot, stalking his prey in the same patch of sky as had Leefe-robinson.
Growing up in Kent Richard Stevens and his family spent hours on country walks, often at night. His siblings remembered that Richard was “at home in the dark” and “with the night instinct of a cat!”. Not only that, but Richard became a crackshot. With his Webley air pistol, he fired at 78 rpm records suspended from a washing line, delighting at getting his pellets through the centre hole. If any missed, he would be mortified as the records shattered into black shards onto the lawn. Already
Richard was developing gifts and talents which later stood him in good stead: excellent night vision and excellent marksmanship.
By 1928 an adventurous spirit led him to go farming in Australia. A young man with aspirations, he was still searching for a role in life. With few friends he was something of a loner but was becoming a more proficient shot. On horseback he carried his own personal armoury and was once teased, “It’s all very
“HOW WE ALL CHEERED AS THE AIRSHIP SPLIT INTO TWO ANGRY RED BALLS OF FIRE AND FELL TO THE GROUND NORTH OF THE RIVER”
well going around like Billy the Kid but you couldn’t hit a haystack at five yards.” With that, he whipped out his pistol and shot a rabbit from horseback at some 20 yards, cleanly and through its head. But life in Australia was becoming dull. He needed new adventures.
Now he enlisted in the Palestine Police
Force where he served for some four years and his brother James recalled, “He had a distinct fellow-feeling with Jews and Arabs.
His great hero was Lawrence of Arabia. His book The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom had a deep meaning for him. I think Richard wanted to follow in the footsteps of Lawrence.”
By 1936 Richard was back in Britain where he met and married Mabel Hyde before learning to fly. Qualifying as a pilot he went on to fly commercially with Wrightways of Croydon. Here he was sometimes seen wearing Arab head dress – an echo of his fascination with T. E. Lawrence.
At Croydon Stevens was already getting a reputation for his prodigious ability to see in the dark – something which stood him in good stead on night-time flights between Croydon and Paris. Guy Ashenden flew with him at Croydon, “It was said that if you wanted to find a really thick fog you only had to go to Croydon airport. His night sight was incredible. Not only could he see in the fog and mist, but he had the instinct of a homing pigeon.”
Prior to the war Richard enlisted in the RAFVR while continuing duties with Wrightways, and when war was declared he initially flew with Wrightways on army co-operation flights. Then, in April 1940, he received his first RAF posting to Ringway Airport and 110 Anti-aircraft Wing where he was regarded as “a very good and professional pilot who just wanted to get on with the war”.
Meanwhile his wife and two children, twins John and Frances, lived in West Sussex and in a tragic accident in October 1940 a paraffin stove overturned causing a fire in which
Frances died. Richard was devastated and became estranged from Mabel. Later it would be reported (incorrectly) that his wife and children had been killed in the Blitz. The loss of his beloved Frances, though, gave him incentive to get back at the enemy whom he perceived to have been at least indirectly responsible for the death of Frances. By late 1940 he was posted to an Operational Training Unit.
His instructor, Derek Dowding, recalled,
“We were used to dealing with very young and inexperienced pilots and onto this scene burst 31-year-old Stevens – vastly more experienced than any of his instructors! He was an incredibly competent bad weather pilot and we could have taught him to fly the Hurricane in a week, but the ‘system’ demanded he stay the full course. This contributed to his impatience. He regarded his time at Sutton Bridge as an interruption in his programme of getting to work against the Germans.”
Finally, in November 1940, Richard was posted to 151 Squadron at Wittering as a night fighter pilot where, on 15/16 January 1941, he found success for the first time – his finely honed flying skills, remarkable nightvision and expert marksmanship all coming together in two actions that saw his nascence as a night fighter ‘ace’.
First, over Essex, he found a Dornier 17, sending it flaming into the ground. There were no survivors. Stevens, though, momentarily blacked out from excessive ‘G’ in the dive from 30,000ft and over stressed his Hurricane to an extent that it was immediately grounded. Taking up another Hurricane later that night, he found further prey, sending a Heinkel 111 into the sea off Canvey Island.
“ONCE, WHEN A BOMBER EXPLODED JUST IN FRONT OF HIM, THE BLOODY REMAINS OF AN AIRMAN WAS SPLATTERED ACROSS HIS HURRICANE. HE REFUSED TO LET HIS GROUND-CREW WASH IT OFF”
Later, landing at Gravesend, Stevens strode into the dispersal hut to find exhausted Defiant pilots and gunners lounging around doing nothing. Wing Commander Cosby recalled, “Suddenly, in strode a chap wearing an Irvin jacket and flying boots. Looking around, he demanded, ‘Why aren’t you lot airborne?’ He was told in no uncertain words of one syllable and a few expletives what he could do.
“We asked him who the hell he was, where he came from, and in what. He told us from Wittering, in a Hurricane. We told him to bloody well go back there. He said his name was Stevens. We’d never heard of him.”
However, they soon would hear of him. His first ‘kill’ was immortalised by war artist Eric Kennington in a work called Stevens’ Rocket and was published with a Kennington portrait of Stevens in the London Illustrated News.
Stevens was later admitted to hospital with a burst eardrum caused by diving from
30,000ft on his first engagement. He then wrote to his father, modestly telling him, “I resent congratulations for a job that 9/10ths of the RAF could have done as easily or better. I have two Huns to my credit and now they have added a DFC.”
His first ‘kill’ after getting back on operations was a bomber seen against the moon’s reflection on the sea far below. The raider stood no chance. Then, on 8 April, another victory against a Heinkel 111 saw the aircraft crashing in flames near Wellesbourne. Here history repeated itself as another young boy watched from his bedroom window as the bomber crashed to earth in flames. Two days later Stevens literally flew through the exploding debris of a Heinkel. His score was rising dramatically.
One of his victims found out what it was like on the receiving end of a Stevens attack, a traumatised Junkers 88 gunner telling his story, “We were flying slowly at under 100 feet in misty conditions and I thought we were invisible. Suddenly, I looked up and saw the shadow of a night fighter right on top of us. I just couldn’t believe it as the cockpit and propeller slowly moved inside our tail plane. When he opened up with his cannon I thought he had collided with us because our debris was all over him, but there, quite clearly to be seen against the background glare of our burning aircraft, was a black helmeted figure, silhouetted in the open cockpit.”
In a short and meteoric career Stevens became a legendary figure in RAF Fighter Command, steadily racking up his score. Newspapers lauded him as the “Cat’s Eyes night fighter pilot”, a senior RAF officer describing him as “The Lone Wolf” and tales of his exploits abounded. Once, when a bomber exploded just in front of him, the bloody remains of an airman was splattered across his Hurricane. He refused to let his ground
crew wash it off. Cyril Mead, his fitter, recalled, “How he landed in the dark I don’t know. The windscreen had a large hole in it. The oil tank was punctured and dented, and we found hair and bits of bone stuck to the leading edge of the port wing, the tips of the propeller blades covered in blood.”
Meanwhile Stevens painted a colourful winged dragon, an RAF ensign wrapped in its tail, depicted spearing a swastika-bedecked eagle through a layer of cloud. It was hardly subtle, but the garish artwork reflected his colourful character.
One night, told that the weather was too bad to fly, he was having none of it and took off against instructions. On another occasion the airfield was bombed and Stevens raced to his Hurricane to get airborne only to be told he couldn’t take off because the runway lights were not lit. “I don’t need bloody lights,” he retorted, “I’ll get that bastard!”
Stevens continued to claim victories and at the end of June 1941 sent a Junkers 88 into the waves ten miles off Happisburgh. It was victory number 12, but on nights when there were no operations, he was to be found in the Ops Room studying German aircraft to determine their weak points.
At the end of July he got number 13 by keeping the enemy silhouetted against the distant Northern Lights before the North Sea eventually closed over another Junkers 88. The squadron diary recorded victory 14, “Pilot Officer Stevens knocks down another, the clumsy devil. Why doesn’t he look where he’s going?!”
By late summer German night raids all but stopped and there were no longer bomber streams to find and where Stevens flew deliberately into anti-aircraft barrages knowing this was where the Germans would be, picking out targets with exceptional night vision and picking off raiders with consummate marksmanship. In fact just flying a Hurricane at night was challenging let alone finding and engaging the enemy. Often cockpit canopies would be left open for better visibility and this allowed exhaust carbon monoxide to be sucked into the cockpit as temperatures plummeted to subzero. However, with Stevens being master of machine, night sky and foe it was inevitable he would be sent over occupied enemy territory to seek out the enemy there. It was called ‘intruding’. Group Captain Tom Gleave was station commander at RAF Manston at that time, “Night intruding was in its infancy and ‘Steve’ was one of the pioneers. He was someone I admired tremendously. Although quiet, and very much a loner, he was imbued with a hatred of the Hun.”
Eventually, in his all-black Hurricane, Stevens set out on his last operation from Manston, intruding over Gilze-rijen airfield in the Netherlands. Joining the circuit he shot down one Junkers 88 and damaged another before his Hurricane crashed near the airfield, killing him instantly. Tom Gleave recalled, “The ops room rang through to say they heard ‘Steve’ calling but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then nothing more was heard from him. As the night ticked away the sad truth dawned on us all.”
The bright star that had been Flt Lt Richard Stevens, DSO, DFC & Bar, had been snuffed out; the RAF’S highest scoring night fighter pilot and the only one to achieve results without radar by using skill, instinct and marksmanship.
When Stevens was killed, his fame all but died with him. Writing of Stevens, H. E. Bates summed it up thus, “He is dead now – you are the living. His was the sky – yours is the Earth because of him.”