The Luftwaffe Raid on Middle Wallop, 609 Squadron's Airfield and Red Tobin's Accounts of the Attack
Quoted from thebattleofbritain.net -
1745hrs: Three He111 bombers come in over the airfield from the south and unload their cargo of bombs. As the Spitfires of both squadrons attack the Heinkels, a second flight of 609 Squadron attempts a hairy take off dodging both bombs and exploding craters in an effort to get airborne. Just as this was happening, a Ju88 came in from a slightly different angle, unmolested by any of the RAF fighters ready to make its attack on the airfield.
The Ju88 went into a steep dive, its nose pointing at the business end of Middle Wallop. A few of 609 Squadrons Spitfires were still trying to get off the ground just as at 1,200 feet the bomber let its bomb glide gently from its bomb bay. The bomber then pulled out of its dive, levelled then with engines at full throttle went into a steep climb away from the blast that was just about to happen.
The bomb hit Hangar No.5 blasting out doors and the roof, sides were ripped open like a knife through a tomato. Bodies lay everywhere, both intact and in pieces;
"My head was spinning, it felt as though I had a permanent ringing in my ears, I felt the blast go over me as I lay there flattened on the ground. I got up and my instinct was to run towards the hangar. It was carnage, I saw one overalled person with his foot and half a leg blown off, another had a great red patch on his chest with a load of mess hanging from it, another was rolling in agony with one of his arms missing.
The door of the hangar was only half closed and just inside I could see the bodies of four overalled men on the ground with one seemingly splattered against the edge of the door. I felt sick, I almost threw up there and then, but as other air force personnel came into the hangar, they just seemed to go about their business in a respectable and calm manner with no sign of panic. Then I remembered what I was told about the British, 'no matter how bad the situation, they will always keep that stiff upper lip'."
-- Pilot Officer E.Q. (Red) Tobin (American) 609 Squadron Middle Wallop
"Red Tobin, a lanky American from Los Angeles whose new home was with 609 Squadron, was walking over to hangar 5 after lunch at Middle Wallop fighter airfield when three Ju. 88s suddenly dived out of the clouds. 'I hit mother earth and stayed there...sprayed with debris...it was awful. One man's foot was blown off, another one's arm up to the shoulder blades. At least three...crushed under the hangar door.' Red saw Sergeant Alan Feary in his Spitfire dive on the Ju. 88 and shoot it out of the sky. 'I am convinced,' wrote Red in his diary, 'that war is now playing the most brutal game.'
"Red and his friends Andy Mamedoff and Shorty Keough had been looking for a fight with the Germans. After many adventures they reached England, where an MP friend put in a good word for them and the RAF gladly took them on. Later I was to know Red, a fine and gentle man who might have stepped straight out of a Western. His language was colored with phrases like 'Saddle up boy, I'm ridin,' that sent his fitter running to start up his Spitfire."
