P/O. John Ellacombe 'Covering the Bobby' 24/8/1940
‘Covering the Bobby’ -Hurricane of P/O John Ellacombe 24/8/40
Although this is the first time that I have painted John Ellacombe in combat, I have a funny feeling it may not be the last. I read quite a lot of Battle of Britain pilot biographies, and often find myself struck by their stories, though in many different ways.
Some of them are striking for the sad brevity of the pilot’s life, so many losing their lives within days, weeks, or for some, a few months or even years. In contrast, there are a handful of stories of pilots, like Ellacombe, who served in front line roles throughout almost the entirety of the war and somehow survived. John’s own understated words on the subject speak volumes:
“ I was pleased to have survived but I lost a lot of friends”
Whilst John’s survival had, no doubt, an element of luck behind it, his service record is also a great testimony to his skill, courage and determination to be in the ‘thick of the fight’. By the 30th September 1944, when he was put forward for a bar to his DFC, Sq/L. Ellacombe had clocked up 315 hours on operations.
This flying included extensive combat at the height of the Battle of Britain, where he was shot down twice, the second time suffering severe burns. Afterwards he had flown both Hurricanes and Defiants on nightfighter duties and was subsequently also involved in attacking coastal flak positions during the Dieppe landings. During his second sortie on that day, he had to bale out into the sea and found himself in the maelstrom of events below during his rescue. He subsequently flew Mosquitos on both fighter and low level attack operations, performing this latter task during the D-Day landings and on through the subsequent campaign in France.
It is quite some service record.
One of the other things that caught my attention whilst reading his biography, was the fairly rapid evolution of his feelings about it all, once finding himself in a front line squadron.
His recollections of his reasons for joining up were, in his own words, one of seeing it as “the right place to be” and “ a jolly fine adventure”, but within weeks of mixing with others who had experienced directly some of the horrific actions of the enemy during the campaign in France 1940, and with a very clear sense of the threat posed after Dunkirk, his feelings about things had clearly changed. There is no doubt that John’s sense of keenness for action and adventure never departed him, but from this early point onwards it is clearly laced with a deep sense of enmity towards those he was fighting against.
In reading biographies like this it is interesting how different pilots express differing attitudes on the subject. Many express the feeling that they mostly only thought about fighting and shooting enemy aircraft. Though often a specific encounter may modulate such a view, either the sight of their opponent close up as they attempt to bring a stricken aircraft safely down, or the direct witnessing of the horrific deaths suffered either by their comrades or their enemies. The subsequent effects on thoughts and attitudes seem to vary widely with the individual and their particular experiences.
Perhaps, after all the time that has elapsed since the war, coupled with the fact that our main contact with these incredible aircraft is in happier contexts (airshows for instance), has tended to mean that the focus of our memories has tended to favour remembering the sector of pilots views of the events that is the most palatable, and one that perhaps quite rightly seeks to not to be in any way divisive: The version in which the pilots saw their opponents as ‘enemy aircraft’, which had to be brought down, to win the battle and defend their country, rather than one which accepts that there was a keen readiness to kill the humans fighting for the other side.
Yet being there in those moments then was to live a different experience to ours. At the time, this was a visceral and bitter struggle with no certainty of outcome, a battle fought over, and most likely to be fought in and around, the streets and fields of home.
All of which brings me back to the painting and the moment it depicts:
It is the afternoon of the 24th August 1940. John’s squadron of Hurricanes (151 Squadron) were scrambled from North Weald with 7 pilots taking off (presumably all that was available of the standing strength of 12) to defend against an attack which was correctly judged to be aimed for the aerodrome itself.
John’s combat report states the enemy formation they engaged to consist of 24 Heinkel 111s (bombers) and another 24 Me 109s (fighters), no easy odds, but not untypical of the odds often faced by the RAF pilots during the battle. Despite this, John succeeded in bringing down one of the Heinkels and clearly followed it down as it made a forced landing at Samuel’s Corner (near Great Wakering in Essex.
The only two accounts I can find for what happened next are John’s...one in the form of his combat report from the time, and the other his recollection of the same moments, years later.
The (necessarily brief) combat report states:
“The Heinkel glided down, forced-landing in a field... damaging both wings. The crew of 5 scrambled out, apparently unhurt.”
It was John’s later account that drew me to incident especially though:
“... I had no ammunition left, but I saw the aircraft land and three men climb out. Then a policeman rode up on his bicycle, put it down, and he ran up to these men pulling his notebook out. By then they had their sidearms out. I was circling round and if I had had any ammunition left I would have strafed them. I thought ‘you silly bloke, get out of the way.’ But no, in two minutes they all had their arms round one another and he was writing down all their details. From then on it was such a joke I nearly spun in laughing. There were two other men in the aircraft severely wounded.”
There is a lot to think about here, even in just a recollection of few tense moments condensed into one short paragraph, and a single line ‘official’ account from the same source at written at the time.
As a military aviation artist there is always a complex set of judgements to be made in creating images of moments in a conflict. At the end of the day one is seeking to create a painting which commemorates the events and protagonists faithfully, yet one that people will want to hang on the walls of their homes today- and these two objectives don’t always sit very easily with each other.
There is a sort of archetypal image of such scenes which many will be familiar with, often the depiction will include the crew of the downed aircraft climbing out of, or standing near it, looking completely unharmed, and possibly even giving a wave, as the victor of the combat passes overhead.
Such an image is an attractive proposition, in a way, it certainly sit’s more comfortably on our walls; we sense no injury or death, and no direct animosity between the protagonists, as if the defeated are acknowledging the loss of a fair fight in accordance with some ancient codes of chivalry.
I guess that sometimes this might be a fair depiction of events, but the circumstances here seem more complex, ambiguous and nuanced all round, and that’s just working from Ellacombe’s recounting of events as he repeatedly circled the scene at speed from above.
We’ll never know what was going through the minds of the crew of the Heinkel, or exactly what they did or didn’t do. Did they pull out their sidearms, and if so what was their intent? -To shoot the policeman and attempt to evade capture? Or were they perhaps intending to use a flare pistol or the like to ignite a fire to destroy their own aircraft? (This latter would be to avoid it being captured and thus their enemy being able to use it to understand more about its technical capabilities, and such destruction was the likely protocol for pilots of both sides at the time.)
There is also the matter of the clear discrepancy between his two accounts, the first stating that the crew of 5 scrambled out unhurt, the later one recalling only three men climbing out, the others still inside the aircraft severely wounded. It’s a puzzling discrepancy.
There is also the uncomfortable truth of Ellacombe’s later account, that had he had the ammunition, and the policeman had not been in the way, he would have been quite ready to loose the guns of his aircraft against the almost defenceless crew on the ground. I think here this was in response to the apparent drawing of sidearms by them, against the ‘Bobby’, as perceived from his vantage point, but it reveals something more in the way of a direct animosity than perhaps we are comfortable to think on these days.
I’ve tried to keep an honesty to my depiction of events, and even tried to preserve the ambiguities of the situation, but there is artistic license here. I suspect this pass of Ellacombe’s might just be a little lower than such a pilot would have risked with no particular need to fly so low (though he wouldn’t have been the first to do so amongst those young and exuberant RAF fighter pilots of the day!). I’ve also taken a middle line on the Heinkel crew... the depiction of whom I spent a lot of time and thought over:
In the painting, all five have made it out of the aircraft, but at least one is visibly injured on inspection, though perhaps not so easily seen when passing at speed as Ellacombe is. I thought too, that the ‘arms around each other’ that Ellacombe recalled later maybe what I have depicted, a crew member helping another to just about limp clear of the aircraft. I’ve tried to keep some of the crew looking convincingly together enough for it to seem quite possible that moments before they were considering pulling sidearms on the policeman and making a break for it (all condensed in to a part of the painting not much bigger than a tuppence!)
Somehow though, at the end of things here is one of those strange moments of humour that just seem to occur in life, even in war and as here, just after a the most tense and dangerous few minutes.
So it was that which I have tried to capture as the ‘parting story’ of the painting in the end. I could see the humour that Ellacombe could... after all this, here is a scene which looks like a local Bobby ‘nicking’ the Heinkel crew, as if their presence there with their aircraft was a minor motoring infringement! In the piece, Ellacombe makes a last low pass by the scene, his task of ‘Covering the Bobby’ of no further necessity.
I think I’d like to end though with Ellacombe’s reflections on the period many years later, as the truest context to set all the above against, the easily forgotten memory of what all this was really about:
“I think people realised that if we had lost that battle within three months we would have been finished. We had to win. There were thirty-two pilots at 2 FTS *, six survived the war. It should be remembered as one of the turning points of the war. The Battle of Britain saved Britain of that there is no doubt”
*(The Flying Training School course group with which Ellacombe learned to fly)
-All the quotes from John Ellacombe are from ‘Five of the Few’ by Steve Darlow, a book which has provided much of the factual background for both the painting and this account.
Although this is the first time that I have painted John Ellacombe in combat, I have a funny feeling it may not be the last. I read quite a lot of Battle of Britain pilot biographies, and often find myself struck by their stories, though in many different ways.
Some of them are striking for the sad brevity of the pilot’s life, so many losing their lives within days, weeks, or for some, a few months or even years. In contrast, there are a handful of stories of pilots, like Ellacombe, who served in front line roles throughout almost the entirety of the war and somehow survived. John’s own understated words on the subject speak volumes:
“ I was pleased to have survived but I lost a lot of friends”
Whilst John’s survival had, no doubt, an element of luck behind it, his service record is also a great testimony to his skill, courage and determination to be in the ‘thick of the fight’. By the 30th September 1944, when he was put forward for a bar to his DFC, Sq/L. Ellacombe had clocked up 315 hours on operations.
This flying included extensive combat at the height of the Battle of Britain, where he was shot down twice, the second time suffering severe burns. Afterwards he had flown both Hurricanes and Defiants on nightfighter duties and was subsequently also involved in attacking coastal flak positions during the Dieppe landings. During his second sortie on that day, he had to bale out into the sea and found himself in the maelstrom of events below during his rescue. He subsequently flew Mosquitos on both fighter and low level attack operations, performing this latter task during the D-Day landings and on through the subsequent campaign in France.
It is quite some service record.
One of the other things that caught my attention whilst reading his biography, was the fairly rapid evolution of his feelings about it all, once finding himself in a front line squadron.
His recollections of his reasons for joining up were, in his own words, one of seeing it as “the right place to be” and “ a jolly fine adventure”, but within weeks of mixing with others who had experienced directly some of the horrific actions of the enemy during the campaign in France 1940, and with a very clear sense of the threat posed after Dunkirk, his feelings about things had clearly changed. There is no doubt that John’s sense of keenness for action and adventure never departed him, but from this early point onwards it is clearly laced with a deep sense of enmity towards those he was fighting against.
In reading biographies like this it is interesting how different pilots express differing attitudes on the subject. Many express the feeling that they mostly only thought about fighting and shooting enemy aircraft. Though often a specific encounter may modulate such a view, either the sight of their opponent close up as they attempt to bring a stricken aircraft safely down, or the direct witnessing of the horrific deaths suffered either by their comrades or their enemies. The subsequent effects on thoughts and attitudes seem to vary widely with the individual and their particular experiences.
Perhaps, after all the time that has elapsed since the war, coupled with the fact that our main contact with these incredible aircraft is in happier contexts (airshows for instance), has tended to mean that the focus of our memories has tended to favour remembering the sector of pilots views of the events that is the most palatable, and one that perhaps quite rightly seeks to not to be in any way divisive: The version in which the pilots saw their opponents as ‘enemy aircraft’, which had to be brought down, to win the battle and defend their country, rather than one which accepts that there was a keen readiness to kill the humans fighting for the other side.
Yet being there in those moments then was to live a different experience to ours. At the time, this was a visceral and bitter struggle with no certainty of outcome, a battle fought over, and most likely to be fought in and around, the streets and fields of home.
All of which brings me back to the painting and the moment it depicts:
It is the afternoon of the 24th August 1940. John’s squadron of Hurricanes (151 Squadron) were scrambled from North Weald with 7 pilots taking off (presumably all that was available of the standing strength of 12) to defend against an attack which was correctly judged to be aimed for the aerodrome itself.
John’s combat report states the enemy formation they engaged to consist of 24 Heinkel 111s (bombers) and another 24 Me 109s (fighters), no easy odds, but not untypical of the odds often faced by the RAF pilots during the battle. Despite this, John succeeded in bringing down one of the Heinkels and clearly followed it down as it made a forced landing at Samuel’s Corner (near Great Wakering in Essex.
The only two accounts I can find for what happened next are John’s...one in the form of his combat report from the time, and the other his recollection of the same moments, years later.
The (necessarily brief) combat report states:
“The Heinkel glided down, forced-landing in a field... damaging both wings. The crew of 5 scrambled out, apparently unhurt.”
It was John’s later account that drew me to incident especially though:
“... I had no ammunition left, but I saw the aircraft land and three men climb out. Then a policeman rode up on his bicycle, put it down, and he ran up to these men pulling his notebook out. By then they had their sidearms out. I was circling round and if I had had any ammunition left I would have strafed them. I thought ‘you silly bloke, get out of the way.’ But no, in two minutes they all had their arms round one another and he was writing down all their details. From then on it was such a joke I nearly spun in laughing. There were two other men in the aircraft severely wounded.”
There is a lot to think about here, even in just a recollection of few tense moments condensed into one short paragraph, and a single line ‘official’ account from the same source at written at the time.
As a military aviation artist there is always a complex set of judgements to be made in creating images of moments in a conflict. At the end of the day one is seeking to create a painting which commemorates the events and protagonists faithfully, yet one that people will want to hang on the walls of their homes today- and these two objectives don’t always sit very easily with each other.
There is a sort of archetypal image of such scenes which many will be familiar with, often the depiction will include the crew of the downed aircraft climbing out of, or standing near it, looking completely unharmed, and possibly even giving a wave, as the victor of the combat passes overhead.
Such an image is an attractive proposition, in a way, it certainly sit’s more comfortably on our walls; we sense no injury or death, and no direct animosity between the protagonists, as if the defeated are acknowledging the loss of a fair fight in accordance with some ancient codes of chivalry.
I guess that sometimes this might be a fair depiction of events, but the circumstances here seem more complex, ambiguous and nuanced all round, and that’s just working from Ellacombe’s recounting of events as he repeatedly circled the scene at speed from above.
We’ll never know what was going through the minds of the crew of the Heinkel, or exactly what they did or didn’t do. Did they pull out their sidearms, and if so what was their intent? -To shoot the policeman and attempt to evade capture? Or were they perhaps intending to use a flare pistol or the like to ignite a fire to destroy their own aircraft? (This latter would be to avoid it being captured and thus their enemy being able to use it to understand more about its technical capabilities, and such destruction was the likely protocol for pilots of both sides at the time.)
There is also the matter of the clear discrepancy between his two accounts, the first stating that the crew of 5 scrambled out unhurt, the later one recalling only three men climbing out, the others still inside the aircraft severely wounded. It’s a puzzling discrepancy.
There is also the uncomfortable truth of Ellacombe’s later account, that had he had the ammunition, and the policeman had not been in the way, he would have been quite ready to loose the guns of his aircraft against the almost defenceless crew on the ground. I think here this was in response to the apparent drawing of sidearms by them, against the ‘Bobby’, as perceived from his vantage point, but it reveals something more in the way of a direct animosity than perhaps we are comfortable to think on these days.
I’ve tried to keep an honesty to my depiction of events, and even tried to preserve the ambiguities of the situation, but there is artistic license here. I suspect this pass of Ellacombe’s might just be a little lower than such a pilot would have risked with no particular need to fly so low (though he wouldn’t have been the first to do so amongst those young and exuberant RAF fighter pilots of the day!). I’ve also taken a middle line on the Heinkel crew... the depiction of whom I spent a lot of time and thought over:
In the painting, all five have made it out of the aircraft, but at least one is visibly injured on inspection, though perhaps not so easily seen when passing at speed as Ellacombe is. I thought too, that the ‘arms around each other’ that Ellacombe recalled later maybe what I have depicted, a crew member helping another to just about limp clear of the aircraft. I’ve tried to keep some of the crew looking convincingly together enough for it to seem quite possible that moments before they were considering pulling sidearms on the policeman and making a break for it (all condensed in to a part of the painting not much bigger than a tuppence!)
Somehow though, at the end of things here is one of those strange moments of humour that just seem to occur in life, even in war and as here, just after a the most tense and dangerous few minutes.
So it was that which I have tried to capture as the ‘parting story’ of the painting in the end. I could see the humour that Ellacombe could... after all this, here is a scene which looks like a local Bobby ‘nicking’ the Heinkel crew, as if their presence there with their aircraft was a minor motoring infringement! In the piece, Ellacombe makes a last low pass by the scene, his task of ‘Covering the Bobby’ of no further necessity.
I think I’d like to end though with Ellacombe’s reflections on the period many years later, as the truest context to set all the above against, the easily forgotten memory of what all this was really about:
“I think people realised that if we had lost that battle within three months we would have been finished. We had to win. There were thirty-two pilots at 2 FTS *, six survived the war. It should be remembered as one of the turning points of the war. The Battle of Britain saved Britain of that there is no doubt”
*(The Flying Training School course group with which Ellacombe learned to fly)
-All the quotes from John Ellacombe are from ‘Five of the Few’ by Steve Darlow, a book which has provided much of the factual background for both the painting and this account.