The three new Squadron members were well-liked and were the center of attention. Lanky "Red" Tobin, from the "Wild West" (i.e., California), was thought to be just like a cowboy in the movies. Andy Mamedoff was crazy about gambling and would wager on anything and everything. Vernon Keough, four feet ten inches tall and known to all as "Shorty," had been a professional parachute jumper before the war. He had to sit on two cushions to be able to see over the top of a Spitfire's instrument panel.
Popular though the three Yanks were, Squadron Leader Horace Darley refused to let them fly in combat until he was certain that they were ready. For a month, they ran errands and flew ferrying missions but saw no fighting.
Finally, on August 16, Pilot Officers Keough, Tobin, and Mamedoff were pronounced "operational." It was the start of the Luftwaffe's maximum effort to knock Fighter Command out of the war and clear the way for a full invasion of Fortress England. Nearly every day, the Luftwaffe's air fleets and the RAF's fighter squadrons inflicted heavy losses upon each other.
The Yanks' first operations against the enemy were not encouraging. On his first sortie, Tobin fired 2,000 rounds of .303 ammunition and burned eighty gallons of fuel, but allowed his target, a Messerschmitt Bf-110, to escape. Shorty Keough's first effort was frustrating; he tired his guns repeatedly at the enemy without evident result. In his first combat, Mamedoff fared worse. His Spitfire was all but destroyed by a German Bf-109, although somehow he managed to land.
Then things began to change. On August 25, Red Tobin shot down his first enemy aircraft, a Bf-110. His best fighting day came on September 15, the climax of the Battle of Britain, when hundreds of Spitfires and Hurricanes intercepted roughly 200 German bombers and 400 fighters in the skies over southern England. As usual, Tobin and the rest of 609 Squadron were up over London. He could see about 100 German aircraft approaching from the south--some fifty Bf-109s above, twenty-five Dornier Do-215 bombers below, and other planes in the distance. As junior man, he was weaving to protect the tails of flight leader and wingman. As his flight was preparing to drop on the Dorniers below, Tobin heard his leader call, "OK, Charlie. Come on in." Before joining up, he looked around and saw three yellow-nosed Bf-109s diving from behind.
He screamed into his microphone, "Danger, Red Section! Danger! Danger! Danger!" At the same time, he throttled back and threw his Spitfire into a 360-degree turn. The German pilots could not slow down and shot past. Tobin fired at the last Messerschmitt as it went by and saw smoke trail from it.
Soon, Tobin was all alone. He spotted a Do-215 heading for a cloud bank and dove after it before it could reach safety. Red was able to close to within machine-gun range. He pressed the firing button and immediately saw smoke coming from an engine. "I followed it down and saw a Do-215 make a crash-landing two or three miles east of Biggin Hill," Tobin stated. "Three of the crew got out and sat on the wing."
Pilot Officer Tobin had another confirmed kill and damaged another Bf-109. Shorty Keough was credited with one-half of a kill on September 15; it was also a Do-215.
The Luftwaffe's losses on September 15, about fifty-six aircraft, convinced Hitler that the Luftwaffe was incapable of winning air superiority over the Channel. Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of England, was postponed and then shelved completely.
Tobin, Mamedoff, and Keough all died in combat against the Luftwaffe, but not before they had passed some of their hard-won expertise to other US flyers. Four days after the great air battle, on September 19, Tobin, Mamedoff, and Keough became the first pilots transferred to Number 71 Eagle Squadron, where they formed the nucleus of one of the war's most famous flying units.
