"The risks usually presented presented a far grimmer aspect...[On February 15, 1941] Shorty Keough failed to return from a scramble in which a three-plane section had been ordered aloft after a warning of possible attack. A coast guard unit found the tops of some size five flying boots.
"'Nobody but little Shorty could wear such small boots,' the Ops Record Book noted. 'There can be little doubt that Shorty's plane dived into the sea at a great speed and that he was killed instantly.'
"Pete Peterson commented, 'Shorty had fairly normal legs, but his trunk was so short he had to sit on two pillows in order to see over the windscreen. Apparently on his last flight he forgot to turn on his oxygen and blacked out simply for lack of air.'"
"Fighter Command decided that 133 Squadron should take further instruction at Eglinton, Northern Ireland. 'We never did forgive the RAF for this move to the island of never-ending rain,' Sperry said. 'It cost the lives of four of our members.'
"Fifteen pilots left Fowlmere in their Hurricanes on October 8, 1941, and reached their first refueling stop, at Sealand, in less than an hour. Storm clouds settled in. Only six pilots made it to the next planned stop at Andreas RAF station on the Isle of Man. Three landed at an intermediate field. Two turned back to Sealand. The other four perished...[incl.] flight leader Andy Mamedoff."
"[September 7, 1941] was the first sweep with the new Spitfires...Because of mechanical difficulties, there were only nine planes instead of the normal twelve as 71 Squadron started over France.
"About seventy-five miles inland, near the planned turning point, the English ground radar controller advised the formation that there were enemy bandit plottings to the rear, between the Spitfires and the French coast. The plottings turned out to be approximately one hundred Me 109s which had waited for the RAF planes to fly inland before coming up to overwhelm the invading force.
"The battle quickly turned into the fiercest engagement the Eagles had yet encountered. The 109s attacked the Spitfires of 71 Squadron from above, at twenty-nine thousand feet, and then returned to higher altitude rather than continuing downward to the other two squadrons.
"Peterson shot down his first enemy plane; other 109s probably were destroyed. But Tobin and Fenlaw were killed."