Canadian Pilot Was Air Ace Of Malta Defence

Taranaki Daily News, 22 March 1943, Page 2

Canadian Pilot Was Air Ace Of Malta Defence

GEORGE ("Buzz") Beurling is the fighter pilot who won fame by shooting down in one hectic morning over Malta four enemy planes and one "probable." Back in Canada with the D.S.O., D.F.C., D.F.M. and bar, Beurling's record and methods were assessed by Webb Waldron for Maclean's Magazine. This lad is worth study, writes Mr. Waldron. He is completely a creature of the air. Crazy about flying since he was a child, he became a pilot at 17, and now at 21 his bag of 29 enemy planes brought down, plus three probabies and nlne damaged, is close to the R.A.F. record. Beurling is a hard, cold, ruthless war killer. His record is due to the fact that he has laboured to perfect his technique and applies it with deadly mathematical precision. Beurling puts it this way: "There is no room for softheartedness. The enemy is trying to get you, it is up to you to get him first— hard and plenty." When Buzz says, "I gave him a burst," it doesn't mean he simply cut loose at an enemy plane, hoping to bring it down. It means that he fired at the enemy from a carefully ealculated distance, at an intended angle and often at a certain spot on the enemy plane. His first bag is an example. In April, 1942, his squadron was assigned to a - daylight sweep of Spitfires escorting bombers in a raid on Lille. Beurling asked to be put last in the squadron — the most dangerous spot. "There wasn't much action at that time," he said, "and I thought if I was last man I might see some fun." On the way back to England a swarm of Focke-Wulf 190's attacked the sweep. Five of them went for Beurling. "One after another tried to get on my tail," he said, "and I kept whipping around to get them off." Then suddenly Buzz performed a little trick of his own that almost stopped his plane in mid-air. The Focke-Wulf behind him shot past and crossed in front. "I judged he was going 450 miles an hour," said Beurling. "So at about 300 yards I allowed him four and a half rings and gave him a two and a half second burst." Gunnery Calculations. The fire of the Spitfire's six guns— two 20 millimeter cannon and four .303 machine-guns— converges at about 300 yards. If a plane is travelling 100 miles an hour across your sights, you aim the diameter of your ring-sight ahead of it. This FW was going 450 miles an hour, so Beurling aimed four and a half rings ahead. It all happened in seconds, but it was done with expert precision. "The Jerry exploded," said Beurling, "went down in a trail of black smoke." Buzz has been fascinated by the air since, at the age of six, his father made him his first model plane. When he was II he began to hang around a nearby aerodrome. The pilots liked him and answered his questions because he was interested and intelligent. Soon they began taking him up. By the time he was 14 he was taking flying lessons. He paid for them by selling newspapers and doing odd jobs around the aerodrome. In 1939, when Buzz was 17, he left his Montreal home for Vancouver. riding the rods, and tried to enlist in the Chinese air force. Baulked in this attempt, he tried the Royal Canadian Air Force. They advised him to go back and finish high school — he had another year. "So." he says. "I thought I'd try the R.A.F." A munition ship needed deckhands. He signed on and sailed. In Glasgow he found he had hurried awAv without his certificated logbook

giving his flying time. R.A.F. men advised him to hop home and get it. He went back on the same ship, grabbed his papers, and sailed qnce more for Britain. During his R.A.F. training, Buzz strove to develop his eyesight. "I would pick out a distant hiiy he said, "then a tree on that hill, then a branch of that tree, and try to make out the details quickly. Rv tV -s that again and again, I found I could spot aircraft and distinguish what kina they were sooner than other fellows could." ' He paid especial attention to "deflection shooting"— which takes into account the angle of your plane to the enemy plane, their respective speeds and the distance from each other. Without this proficiency his bag might be five or six to-day instead of 29. Beurling has become such a master of deflection shooting that the British Air Ministry asked him to write a hook about it for R.A.F. pilots. A Narrow Squeak. In getting his second bag, Beurling had a narrow squeak. His squadron was on a fighter sweep over the French coast. Attacked by FW 190's, they were outnumbered six to one. Beurling, again in the rear by his own request, got all the fun he wanted. "Cannon shells and machine-gun bullets from both sides," he "said. "The plane bucked and shuddered with the impact. I thought it was going out of control. Shrapnel got me in the ribs. My port cannon and machineguns were knocked out, my starboard cannon was banged loose so that it was pointing down and flapping in the breeze. A shell burst inside one wing, blowing it up to three times its size and making it wobble. I was out over the^ middle of the Channel — thought for a minute I'd have to bail out. Then six Jerries came at me again. I pulled around and flew right into the sun. The Jerries flew after me, but the sun blinded them as I thought it would. They passed without seeing me. I gave the middle one a burst with my two remaining machine-guns— he was only 50 yards, ahead. He blew up, and the other Jerries beat it for France." Buzz staggered home— his plane riddled, engine shot through and leaking, one wing almost off. A month or so later he went to Malta, at that time the hottest spot on earth. On account of the nearness of enemy aerodromes— only 60 miles away, on Sicily — advance warning was very brief. An the R.A.F. couldn't keep patrols in the air because of the shortage of petrol. The Spitfires had to remain on the ground till the raid was actually reported. "It would take us only a few minutes to get up to 20,000 feet," said Beurling. "If Jerries were on the way we would look alive, but if it was Eyties we'd take it easy. Oh, they're brave enough, and good fliers, but they try to do acrobatics. Even so, the Eyties will stick it out even if things are going against them, whereas the Jerries will run." Beurling would study the flying of an enemy squadron. "After a pilot has made one or two turns you can tell how good he is," said Buzz. "Get rid of the really good ones first," he explained, "because they will wait outside and at the right moment come in, whish, and knock you out." Beurling studied air firing so carefully that he would rarely fire except from the exact range for which his guns were harmonised for maximum concentration. If he fired from a shorter distance— thus encountering the possibility of fire from his two wing cannons passing on either side of the target — he would make allowances and aim so that

The art of uslng a Spitfire's guns was brought to a high levei by George Beurling, known as "Air Knight of Malta/' one of his cannon was certain to strike home. . Once Buzz and another pilot were mixed up with 15 enemy flghters. Beurling shot down one Messerschmitt, then "all the rest came for" him, riddling him with bullets. Suddenly his engine conked. He would have bailed out, but he had on somebody else's parachute— the harness was loose and Beurling was afraid he'd be brought up with such a jolt that he might rupture himself. So he put his ship's nose down and glided precipitously to the island — a 25,000-foot drop. "I had seen a co'uple of crash landings in the movies," Beurling recalls, "and I noticed that they always took the crash on one wing. So I stuck one wing down and when we hit, I hardly felt the shock," he said. "My plane was smashed, but all the damage I got was my arm ripped open and a few scratches." As Beurling's score rose, he got citation after citation. First the Distinguished Flying Medal, then the D.F.M. with bar, then the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was offered , a commission, but refused it, saying that he wanted to remain a sergeant. Later he was persuaded to accept a commission as Pilot Officer. ' Because of the strain of constant air raids day and night, fighter pilots on Malta worked in one-day shifts — one on, one off-but Beurling worked straight through, "because," he says, "I loved it" Other pilots could stand only two months or so at a stretch, then had to get away on leave. He was there almost five months straight and probably would be there yet if he hadn't been shot down, wounded. On a day in October he went up m a squadron of eight to meet a raid of bombers and fighters. ^ "After we climbed to get above them, he said, "I half-rolled onto a bomber and set him afire; his wing fell- off but as he spun down the gunner got a shot at me from below, wounded me in the arm and fingers. Then I saw a Messerschmitt attacking my leader. I gave him a couple seconds' burst; he fell into the sea. Then I heard two Spitfires calling for help down below. I swooped in a power dive at about 600 miles an hour, got under the whole formation of enemy planes, came up under one Jerry and blew off a wing. But another had followed me down. He shot my controls away, put cannon shells into my plane's belly — shrapnel got me in the foot. There I was at 18,000 feet, my engines out of control, doing a power dive in spirals toward the sea. My plane was on fire, flames coming over toward me. I tried to climb out of the cockpit, but centrifugal force pressed me into my seat. I fought to get out and at the last minute [ did manage to jump. Another split second and it would have been too late." The dive had. taken him from 18,000 feet to 1000 feet "in an unimaginably brief tick of time. His parachute opened, he floated gently down into the Mediterranean where a launch picked him up. His foot was bleeding badly from a cut artery. He went right to the operating room. While he lay in hospital he was awarded the much-coveted D.S.O. Shortly afterward the R.C.A.F. asked that Beurling be granted leave to come home. When he gets on his pins, he will make a tour .of ' Canada telling young air recruits what their jobs are like, how to train, and what to look out for in a fight. It's not what he wants to do, he's obeying orders. "I want to get back to Malta," he says.