Hurricane hero who rammed German bomber

NOTHING better symbolised the central role of the Hurricane in protecting the nation than a daring exploit on September, 15, 1940, the day the Luftwaffe suffered crippling losses and was ultimately forced to withdraw from the fray. Ray Holmes, of 504 Squadron, had been in combat most of that morning and had run out of ammunition when, over London, he spotted a lone Dornier bomber about to launch an assault on the West End. Determined to stop the German at any cost, he decided to ram the enemy from behind. ‘How flimsy the tailplane looked as it filled my windscreen, as fragile as glass,’ he said. ‘The tough little Hurricane would splinter it like balsa wood.’ That is exactly what happened. On the impact with Holmes’s fighter, the Dornier’s tailplane came away, then the bomber disintegrated, though the stunned German crew managed to bail out and came down on the pitch at the Oval cricket ground. Holmes had to escape from his Hurricane, which went into an uncontrollable dive and plummeted into the ground near Buckingham Palace. To cheers from a crowd that had watched the action, Holmes came down by parachute with only minor bruises.