Notes from Pierre Clostermann's book The Big Show

I recently read the book and thought that some passages may have some interest for the virtual pilots of the Spitfire. The book is very good and I hope the passages quoted below will kindle some interest for more people to read it.

 

P.100

Dive-bombing with Spitfires is a technique on its own, as the bomb is fixed under the belly of the machine, in the place of the auxiliary tank. If you bomb vertically the propeller is torn off by the bomb. If you bomb at 45°, aiming is very difficult. After various attempts Maxie evolved the following method: The twelve aircraft of the squadron made for the objective at 12,000 feet in close reversed echelon formation. As soon as the leader saw the target appear under the trailing edge of his wings he dived, followed by the remainder, at 75°. Each pilot took the objective individually in his sights and everyone came down to 3,000 feet at full throttle. At that point you began to straighten out, counted three and let go your bomb. It was rather rudimentary, but after a fortnight the squadron was landing its bombs inside a 150-yard circle.

 

P.110

The weather was not very good. The Channel was angry and choppy and the smaller craft seemed to be making heavy weather of it. The low cloud made us come lower than altitude Z at which we should have been flying, and leave the safety corridors. As a result we flew slightly too close to a 10,000-ton cruiser, Southampton class, escorted by 4 big MTB’s. The cruiser immediately started tacking desperately and signalling by Aldis lamp all sorts of violent things that nobody could understand. Personally I have never been able to assimilate morse, still less visual morse. To avoid unpleasantness from her ack-ack we turned our backs on her as far as we could.

 

P.172

‘Hallo Talbot leader, Kenway calling—there are Huns around coming back from the Ruhr. Can’t give you anything definite yet!’ I released the safety-catch and checked my reflector sights. Hell! The bulb had burnt out. Feverishly I took off my gloves, fumbled in the little rack where the spare bulbs were clipped, and unscrewed the base of the sight. ‘Look out for Huns coming down at 3 o’clock!’ I swore under my breath and looked up, in time to see about 30 Focke-Wulfs peeling off less than 6,000 feet above and diving on us. Instinctively I stopped messing about with the sights and turned to face the attack with the other five aircraft. The base of my sight dangling on the end of the electric wire caught me full in the face, my gloves fell under my seat and a 30-mm. shell exploded in my starboard wing, riddling my fuselage with fragments. A poor start!

 

P.223

‘One last bit of advice: if you are hit and have to bale out, the best way, let me remind you, is this: stick right back—jettison the hood—curl up in a ball—wait a few seconds—jerk the stick right forward. You’ll have nine chances out of ten of being thrown clear of the cockpit. Naturally I hope it won’t come to that!

 

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Very Cool! :thumbup:

Full throttle dive bomb from Angels 12... methinks Monsieur Clostermann doth exaggerate!

… methinks Monsieur Clostermann doth exaggerate!

Which is a very well known fact about Closterman. And I won't deepen in other names Closterman is called sometimes… :music_whistling:

 

 

 

S!

Monsieur Clostermann doth exaggerate!

 

He, who in the skies doth flith, doth exaggerate.