Ray Holmes

In June 1940 he joined No. 504 Squadron RAF. He became known among his flight comrades as “Arty” which was taken from the initials of his name R.T.

Rudolf Heitsch's Dornier Do 17 at Castle Farm, Shoreham. The flamethrower is just visible on the aft fuselage.[7]

On 15 September 1940, known as Battle of Britain Day, Sergeant Holmes was flying a Hawker Hurricane fighter when he spotted a formation of three Dornier Do 17 bombers of Kampfgeschwader 76 heading for central London, to make a bombing attempt. As he made an attack on one of the bombers, the bomber fired a flamethrower at him, and Holmes' windscreen was covered in oil.[8]

The flamethrower, obviously intended for use on the ground, did not work as intended at 16,000 feet, producing a jet of flame only some 100 yards long. The oil did not catch fire, and instead covered Holmes' windshield. Holmes waited, knowing that the airflow would clear the oil away. As his windscreen cleared, he realised that he was dangerously close to the Dornier, and ramming the stick forward, passed beneath the bomber.[8]

I made my attack on this bomber and he spurted out a lot of oil, just a great stream over my aeroplane. blotting out my windscreen. I couldn't see a damn thing. Then, as the windscreen cleared, I suddenly found myself going straight into his tail. So I stuck my stick forward and went under him, practically grazing my head on his belly.[8]

He attacked the second Dornier, causing a crew member to bail out.

I got to the stern of the aeroplane and was shooting at him when suddenly something white came out of the aircraft. I thought that a part of his wing had come away but in actual fact it turned out to be a man with a parachute coming out. I was travelling at 250 miles per hour, it all happened so quickly, but before I knew what had happened this bloody parachute was draped over my starboard wing. There was this poor devil on his parachute hanging straight out behind me, and my aeroplane was being dragged. All I could do was to swing the aeroplane left and then right to try to get rid of this man. Fortunately, his parachute slid off my wing and down he went, and I thought, Thank heavens for that![8]

Zehbe's Dornier falling on Victoria Station after being rammed by Holmes.

Holmes then spotted the third Dornier making directly for Buckingham Palace. Avoiding the bomber's machine-gun fire, Holmes quickly climbed ahead of it, then swung around to make a head-on attack. However, he ran out of ammunition, so Holmes decided to ram the bomber.

As I fired, my ammunition gave out. I thought, Hell, he's got away now. And there he was coming along and his tail looked very fragile and very inviting. So I thought I'd just take off the tip of his tail. So I went straight at it along him and hit his port fin with my port wing. I thought, That will just take his fin off and he'll never get home without the tail fin. I didn't allow for the fact that the tail fin was actually part of the main fuselage. Although I didn't know it at the time, I found out later that I had knocked off the whole back half of the aircraft including the twin tails.[9]

Holmes' plane began to dive to the left, and was no longer responding to the controls. As the Hurricane went into a vertical dive, he bailed out. As he climbed out, the air-stream caught him and smacked him down on to the roof of his Hurricane. Then, as he was thrown backwards, his shoulder hit his own tail fin. When he finally managed to pull his ripcord, the jolt shook off his flying boots and he found himself swinging violently about. He could see the Dornier dive out of control and crash near Victoria tube station.[9] Holmes came down in a narrow back garden, and ended up dangling inside an empty dustbin.[9][10]

The Dornier pilot, Feldwebel Robert Zehbe, bailed out, only to die later of wounds suffered during the attack.[1] The observer, Unteroffizier Hans Goschenhofer, and the gunner, Unteroffizier Gustav Hobel, did not survive the crash. However, radio operator Gefreiter Ludwig Armbruster bailed out over Sydenham, and flight engineer Unteroffizier Leo Hammermeister bailed out over Dulwich.

Holmes was feted by the press as a war hero for his saving of Buckingham Palace. As the RAF did not practice ramming as an air combat tactic, this was considered an impromptu manoeuvre, and an act of selfless courage. This event became one of the defining moments of the Battle of Britain and elicited a congratulatory note to the RAF from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who had witnessed the event.[11] The bomber's engine was later exhibited at the Imperial War Museum in London.

When recovered, he became part of No 81 Squadron, and was sent to the Northern Front near Murmansk in Soviet Russia to help train the Russian air force in flying the Hawker Hurricane. Here he claimed a further kill; a Bf 109 F. He married Elizabeth Killip in April 1941[6] and was commissioned as a Pilot Officer on 10 June 1941,[12] promoted to Flying Officer on 10 June 1942,[13] and Flight Lieutenant on 10 June 1943.[14]

Returning from Russia, Holmes served as an instructor with 2 FIS, Montrose, from 1942 until 1944. He then flew PR Spitfires with 541 Squadron from February 1945.

After the war, he was a King's Messenger, personally delivering mail for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. After leaving the RAF in late 1945, he returned to journalism, joining his father's news agency covering Liverpool Crown Court for local and national newspapers.[15]

He had two daughters with his wife, Elizabeth, who died in 1964. He later married Anne Holmes in 1966, with whom he had two children: a son and a daughter.

In 1989, he published his autobiography entitled Sky Spy: From Six Miles High to Hitler's Bunker.[16]

65 years later, the wreckage of Holmes' Hurricane was discovered and successfully excavated from the streets of London. The discovery was featured on the National Geographic Channel documentary, "The Search for the Lost Fighter Plane".

He was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Wirral in January 2005.[5]

He died on 27 June 2005, aged 90 at Hoylake Cottage Hospital, following a two-year battle with cancer. He was buried in Rake Lane Cemetery, Wallasey.[3]