Back to Top
AR banner
Search Tips Advanced Search


Denis Robinson 152 Sqn RAF: A Spitfire Pilot's Story


Immortal Spitfifre

The immortal Spitfire

Denis' own account:

'It happened during the Battle of Britain on 8th August 1940. By this time I had destroyed a Me109 on 25th July and destroyed another on 5th August, but now it was my turn to be shot down by Me109s of II/JG 53 (Ace of Spades) off Swanage in Spitfire K9894.

The facts are not particularly gratifying for either myself or Pilot Officer Beaumont, who was also shot down with me that day. We were returning from a patrol in which we had intercepted the enemy and had used all our ammunition. Our eight Browning machine guns used ammo fast due to the limited storage space in the Spitfire wings, and there was never more than 15 seconds total firepower available. So we were returning to our base at Warmwell to refuel and re-arm.

There were three of us flying in vic formation with Beaumont on the left of the flight leader and myself on the right. We were flying in very tight formation, probably about a foot from the leader's wingtips. Therefore Beaumont and I had our eyes and concentration firmly fixed on the leader's aircraft. This was the way we flew in close formation early in the battle - until we learnt better later. Unfortunately, a group of Me109s spotted us and carried out an attack on our unprotected rear, which we had offered them on a plate. We ought to have known better. We knew that it was vital to keep a good lookout at all times, but were lulled into a false sense of security and had relaxed our vigilance briefly. After all, we had had our scrap, were nearly safely home and, anyway, we had no ammo.

152 crest

The first thing I felt was the thud of bullets hitting my aircraft and a long line of tracer bullets streaming out ahead of my Spitfire. In a reflex action, I slammed the stick forward as far as it would go. For a brief second, my Spitfire stood on its nose and I was looking straight down at Mother Earth, thousands of feet below. Thank God my Sutton harness was good and tight. I could feel the straps biting into my flesh as I entered the vertical with airspeed building up alarmingly. I felt fear mounting. Sweating, mouth dry and near panic. No ammo and an attacker right on my tail.

All this happened in seconds, but now the airspeed was nearly off the clock. I simply had to pull out and start looking for the enemy. That's what I did, turning and climbing at the same time. As I opened the throttle fully, with emergency boost selected to assist the climb, I noticed wisps of white smoke coming from the nose of my fighter.

God, No!!..... Fire!

Suddenly the engine stopped. Apparently, a bullet in the glycol tank had dispersed all the coolant and even the faithful Merlin could not stand that for long at full power. So that explained the white smoke. Blessed relief. The fuel tanks of high-octane fuel are situated very close to the pilot in a Spitfire. The dread of being burnt to death was one of the worst fears. It drew heavily on any reserves of courage one had. You can imagine by now, my eyes are searching wildly, frantically looking for my adversary - but, as often happens in air combat, not a single plane was to be seen in the sky around me. The release of tension as I realised my good fortune is something that cannot be described. You only know what it is like to be given back your life if you have been through that experience.

The problems that still confronted me, sitting in the cockpit of a battle-damaged Spitfire, seemed almost trivial in comparison with my situation of a few seconds before. I experienced this feeling several times during the Battle and it had a profound effect on me, which remains with me to this day. It somehow changed my value system, so that things that had seemed important before never had the same degree of importance again. Maybe this is what generated the anti-authority behaviour amongst us. It was no good telling us not to do a victory roll over the airfield when we returned from a scrap, because our aircraft may be damaged and might end up like strawberry jam in the middle of the field. This seemed a trivial risk compared with our experiences of combat in battle.


Recorded on the 23rd August 2010 92 years old, Denis Robinson from Winchester looks back at his service.
(original on YouTube)

To bail out, or not?

The end of the episode was something of an anticlimax. I still had plenty of altitude and time to think. I prepared to bail out and began going through the procedure in my mind. Release the Sutton harness, make sure all connections to the flying helmet are free, slide the canopy back, roll the aircraft until inverted, push the stick forward and out you go.

Then start counting before pulling the D-ring. How many? My memory went blank. Was it three or ten? God! There is a vast difference between the two, I thought. Well, as long as the interval is sufficient to get clear of the aircraft before pulling the D-ring it should be OK.

During this soliloquy, I'd got the Spit into a steady glide. It was gliding rather like a brick, but handling reasonably well and responding to the controls almost normally. I surveyed what I could see of the damage from the cockpit. Not much, apart from a few bullet holes here and there, particularly in the starboard wing. It worried me to abandon the old bus to certain destruction on to heaven knows what, perhaps a school full of children.

Besides, I was by no means convinced that the bailout procedure I had rehearsed was not without considerable risk. I could get caught up in the cockpit paraphernalia... I might be struck by the tailplane... or what if the parachute didn't open? No. I convinced myself that was too bloody dangerous. I would stay with her and force land in a suitable field.

By now most of the fields looked pretty small, so I decided it would be with the wheels up. I picked a field near Wareham that looked suitable, slid back the canopy and commenced an approach. At about 200 feet the boundary loomed up. Full flap and a flare out near the ground achieved a creditable touchdown. So far so good. I was quite pleased with myself as the Spit slithered across the grass.

Then suddenly, I felt her going up onto her nose and, I thought, onto her back. With an almighty crash the canopy slammed shut over my head, the cockpit filled with dirt, completely blinding me. The aircraft seemed to me to be upside down and I was trapped. That awful fear of burning returned at full strength. I grabbed the canopy with all my might and threw it backwards. To my utter amazement, it shot back easily, and the excessive adrenaline-boosted force I had used nearly tore my arms from their sockets. Now I could see that the aircraft had finished up vertically on its nose, in a ditch I hadn't seen from the air.

My actions now became somewhat comic. It was obvious that I could easily jump clear and I commenced to do so without much hesitation. To my utter horror, I couldn't move. Suddenly, I realised I was struggling against the Sutton harness, still buckled firmly in place. An instant pull released the pin. I was free. As I stood up to jump my head was jerked violently backwards. This time it was my flying helmet, still attached to the radio and oxygen sockets in the cockpit. Removing this final impediment I jumped to the ground, leaving my helmet in the cockpit.

To my surprise, the Spitfire didn't burn. I stood back and took in the scene as locals arrived to convey me off to a pub in nearby Wareham and fill me with whisky. I had a slight bullet graze on my leg, but was otherwise unhurt and felt strangely elated. The next day I was back on ops again.

Later my thoughts turned to my actions at the time and to my survival. Firstly, I must have sensed without fully realising it that the tracer from the enemy fire was coming from left to right direction. Since I was on the right of the section leader I could not turn left and collide with him. The only way to go was a right turn, which would enable the attacker to tighten his turn and would have made me an easy target.

The instant reaction of stick hard forward causing the Merlin engine to belch smoke from the exhausts may have convinced the ME 109 pilot that he had been successful in his attack, or perhaps the sudden change in attitude of my aircraft caused the attacker to overshoot his target. Also, the Me109s operating over the Dorset coast far from their French bases were short of fuel and couldn't hang around at length in a dogfight or chase situation. It would have been nice for us if we had known this fuel problem at the time, but we did not. I only found this out years later, after the war. To this day I still do not know what gave me that sixth sense and instant reaction to jam the stick hard forward.

Telling this story helps me to deal with my survival syndrome. In a difficult-to-describe way, it is as though I am speaking for the other chaps who did not make it. Their final story would have been infinitely more readable than mine. One constantly asks: 'Why did I survive ... why did others not?'


Obituary from The Guardian 18 September 2015

My grandfather Denis Robinson, who has died aged 97, was a Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain, one of Churchill’s legendary 'Few'. But he was reluctant to tell stories of the battle, mainly because he felt guilty about having killed others.

Particularly poignant was his account of shooting at a Messerschmitt 109, only to stop when it began to smoke. He justified it at the time on the grounds of saving ammunition, although later he came to realise that he hadn’t wanted to kill the pilot. A few weeks later it was Denis’s turn, when he was shot from behind by an Me109 near Swanage in Dorset. The engine failed and he remained with the plane on the basis that bailing out was 'bloody dangerous'. He crash-landed in a field outside Wareham. The well-known photograph he took of the plane the following morning, with its tail in the air and its nose in a ditch, shows how lucky he was to escape.

Called to full-time service in October 1939, Robinson, who had completed his training, was posted to CFS Upavon for an instructor's course. He then went to 14 FTS Kinloss on 15th November 1939, moved to 14 FTS Cranfield on 19th April 1940, to 6 EFTS Sywell on 24th May and finally to 11 EFTS Perth on 11th June.

Robinson was posted to 152 Squadron at Acklington on 21st June 1940. He destroyed a Me109 on 25th July and destroyed another on 5th August.

He was shot down by Me109s of III/JG53 off Swanage on the 8th in Spitfire K9894. Robinson decided against baling out and made a crash- landing in a field near Wareham (see below). He was unhurt but the aircraft was a write-off.

Denis was born in Christchurch, Dorset, to Percy, an airman in the Royal Flying Corps in the first world war, and Christine (nee Gamage). He was educated at the Stationers’ Company school in Hornsey, north London, after which he learned to fly, joining the RAF volunteer reserve in 1938 and spending the next two years as an instructor, mainly on Tiger Moths.

After the Battle of Britain, Denis trained pilots in Canada and flew supplies into Normandy after D-day, before being seconded to BOAC, then a fledgling international airline. He later flew for British Caledonian, British United, and British Island Airways, before retiring in 1978. His voice can be heard on the indie band Cornershop’s 2002 song The London Radar, which sampled a film made by British United to promote the pleasures of European travel.

Denis was a charismatic, funny man. He spent the last years of his life looking after his wife, Margaret (nee Hopson) after she had a stroke. Margaret, who died in 2013, was originally an air hostess whom he had met on a flight to Australia. They married in 1953, and later in life, she became a family therapist.

Denis is survived by his sons, Max and Barry, by his daughter Sue, and by three grandchildren, Chester, Polly, and me.

Sources: we seek permission from the author of the Guardian obituary to reproduce his moving account

Battle of Britain Database
Allied Losses & Incidents Database
Pages related to 1940

Pages of Outstanding Interest
History Airborne Forces •  Soviet Night Witches •  Bomber Command Memories •  Abbreviations •  Gardening Codenames
CWGC: Your Relative's Grave Explained •  USA Flygirls •  Axis Awards Descriptions •  'Lack Of Moral Fibre'
Concept of Colonial Discrimination  •  Unauthorised First Long Range Mustang Attack
RAAF Bomb Aimer Evades with Maquis •  SOE Heroine Nancy Wake •  Fane: Motor Racing PRU Legend

SPY 2020-11-20

KTY 2022-01-05 Video added

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning we will remember them. - Laurence Binyon

All site material (except as noted elsewhere) is owned or managed by Aircrew Remembered and should not be used without prior permission.
© 2012 - 2024 Aircrew Remembered
Last Modified: 20 June 2023, 17:37

If you would like to comment on this page, please do so via our Helpdesk. Use the Submit a Ticket option to send your comments. After review, our Editors will publish your comment below with your first name, but not your email address.

A word from the Editor: your contribution is important. We welcome your comments and information. Thanks in advance.
Monitor Additions/Changes?Click to be informed of changes to this page. Create account for first monitor only, thereafter very fast. Click to close without creating monitor