Raymond Towers Holmes
Nickname(s)"Ray", "Arty"
Born(1914-08-20)20 August 1914
Wallasey, Cheshire, England
Died(2005-06-27)27 June 2005 (aged 90)
Hoylake, Merseyside, England
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service/branch Royal Air Force
Years of service1936–1945
RankFlight Lieutenant
UnitNo. 504 Squadron RAF
Battles/warsWorld War II
Spouse(s)
Elizabeth Holmes (née Killip)
​
​
(m. 1941; died 1964)​
    Anne Holmes
    ​
    (m. 1966)​
    Other workKing's Messenger, journalist

    Raymond Towers Holmes (20 August 1914 – 27 June 2005) was a British Royal Air Force fighter pilot during the Second World War who is best known for taking part in the Battle of Britain. He became famous for an apparent notable act of bravery in which he reportedly saved Buckingham Palace from being hit by German bombing, when he used his Hawker Hurricane to destroy a Dornier Do 17 bomber over London by ramming. He was feted by the press as a war hero for his saving of the Palace. However, a singular author has questioned this.[1] Holmes became a King's Messenger after the war, and died at the age of 90 in 2005.[2]

    Early life

    Raymond Towers Holmes was born on 20 August 1914 in Wallasey, Cheshire. He attended Wallasey and Calday Grange Grammar School[3] and worked as a crime journalist at the Birkenhead Advertiser[4] before joining the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1936 as their 55th volunteer.[5]

    Second World War

    Battle of Britain

    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.[6]

    According to the now common account, 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.[7]

    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. As the airflow cleared the oil away from his windscreen, Holmes saw that he was dangerously close to the Dornier, and ramming the stick forward, passed beneath the bomber.[7]

    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.[7]

    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![7]

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

    Holmes then spotted the third Dornier apparently making directly for Buckingham Palace. Holmes quickly climbed ahead of it, to avoid any machine-gun fire, 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.[8]

    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 onto the roof of his Hurricane. Then, as he was thrown backward, 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 watched the Dornier crash near Victoria tube station.[8] Holmes landed in a narrow back garden, and ended up dangling inside an empty dustbin.[8][9]

    The Dornier pilot, Feldwebel Robert Zehbe, bailed out, only to die later reportedly of wounds suffered during the attack.[1] The observer, Unteroffizier Hans Goschenhofer, and the gunner, Unteroffizier Gustav Hobel, were killed, while radio operator Gefreiter Ludwig Armbruster and flight engineer Unteroffizier Leo Hammermeister survived.

    Holmes was feted by the press as a war hero for his saving of Buckingham Palace. As the RAF did not practise 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.[10] The bomber's engine was later exhibited at the Imperial War Museum in London.

    Later activities

    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[5] and was commissioned as a Pilot Officer on 10 June 1941,[11] promoted to Flying Officer on 10 June 1942,[12] and Flight Lieutenant on 10 June 1943.[13]

    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.

    Post-war

    Personal life

    After the war, he was a King's Messenger, personally delivering mail for 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.[14]

    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.

    He provided eyewitness testimony of the Battle of Britain in the "Alone" episode of The World at War.

    In 1989, he published his autobiography entitled Sky Spy: From Six Miles High to Hitler's Bunker.[15]

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

    He was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Wirral in January 2005.[4]

    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.

    Postwar myths and clarifications regarding Holmes' attack

    Over the years, several sources began perpetuating the myth that Holmes deliberately crashed into the Dornier and that the German plane was attempting to bomb the palace. However, this account has been challenged by modern scholars, most notably by Alfred Price and Stephen Bungay, for its many errors and inaccuracies. In fact, eyewitness accounts have been uncovered which mention that the Dornier was empty when it was rammed. According to sources, Zehbe developed engine trouble and lagged half a mile behind the main bomber stream. His Dornier attracted a swarm of fighters and had already been damaged, Goschenhofer and Hobel had been killed and then he and the remainder bailed out; Armbruster bailed out over Sydenham, and Hammermeister bailed out over Dulwich. As Zehbe bailed out, he set the aircraft on autopilot.[16] His Dornier flew on empty until Holmes rammed it. During its spinning dive, the gravitational force on the Dornier caused its bombs to be released, which hit or landed near to the Palace nearby, damaging the building.[17] In addition, Holmes' combat report of the day makes no mention of an intended collision with the Dornier. In his combat report, he reported that he had made four attacks on the Dornier. He mentioned seeing a lone crewmember bail out as he made his third attack and, during the last pass, he felt a "jar" which caused his aircraft to fall into an uncontrollable spin, and that he first believed the Dornier exploded beneath him, before seeing it crash while he was on his parachute. Over the years, this apparent unintended "jar" seems to have been transformed into an intentional collision.

    In the attack made by No.504 Squadron I attacked the right flank machine from quarter to astern. Pieces flew from the wings and a flame appeared in the port wing but went out again. After breaking away I climbed up to a single Do 215 and made two quarter attacks. Pieces flew off, my windscreen was now slashed with black oil. I attacked a third time and a member of the crew bailed out. On my fourth attack from the port beam a jar shook my starboard wing as I passed over the e/a and I went into an uncontrollable spin. I think the e/a must have exploded beneath me. I bailed out and as I landed I saw the Dornier hit the ground by Victoria Station, half a mile away.

    In addition, contrary to belief that Zehbe died of wounds suffered during the attack, there are accounts which suggest that after he landed near The Oval,[18] he was severely wounded by a civilian mob. He was rescued by the army but died of his wounds the next day. Zehbe was buried in Brookwood Military Cemetery.[19]

    See also

    References

    1. 1 2 'Those Other Eagles', Shores, (2004)
    2. ↑ "Pilot who 'saved Palace' honoured". BBC News. 2 November 2005. Retrieved 18 March 2009.
    3. ↑ "Ray Holmes". The Times. 29 June 2005. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
    4. 1 2 "Wartime fighter pilot hero gets Freedom of Wirral". Daily Post. 25 January 2005. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
    5. 1 2 "Flight Lieutenant Ray Holmes". The Telegraph. London. 29 June 2005. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
    6. ↑ Goss 2000, p. 152.
    7. 1 2 3 4 Battle of Britain: July–October 1940 - An Oral History of Britain's 'Finest Hour', Matthew Parker, p. 292.
    8. 1 2 3 Battle of Britain: July–October 1940 - An Oral History of Britain's 'Finest Hour', Matthew Parker, p. 293.
    9. ↑ Unearthed: story of the WW2 pilot who saved the Palace, The Independent, 10 October 2011
    10. ↑ "Alfred Keith Ogilvie Battle of Britain Pilot with 609 Squadron." Archived 9 May 2003 at the Wayback Machine lycos.co.uk. Retrieved: 25 July 2009.
    11. ↑ "No. 35217". The London Gazette. 11 July 1941. p. 3999.
    12. ↑ "No. 35643". The London Gazette (Supplement). 21 July 1942. p. 3242.
    13. ↑ "No. 36113". The London Gazette (Supplement). 27 July 1943. p. 3444.
    14. ↑ Johnson, Chris (23 February 2005). "Sheer luck Holmes wins freedom prize". Mercury Press Agency. Retrieved 5 August 2018 – via Press Gazette.
    15. ↑ "Remembering local RAF pilot Ray Holmes and how his daring attack on a German bomber during a WWII air raid near Buckingham Palace became one of the most celebrated events of the Battle of Britain" (PDF). Heswall & District Magazine. August 2017. Retrieved 5 August 2018.
    16. ↑ Price, Alfred. The Battle of Britain Day, Greenhill Books, London, 1990, pp. 49–50 and Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain. Aurum Press, London, 2000, p. 325.
    17. ↑ Bungay 2000, p. 325.
    18. ↑ Hooton 1997, p. 30.
    19. ↑ Robert Zehbe - Commonwealth War Graves Commission Casualty record at Brookwood Military Cemetery, retrieved 18 November 2021.

    Further reading

    • Holmes, Ray (1989). Sky Spy: From Six Miles High to Hitler's Bunker. Airlife Publishing. ISBN 1-85310-054-4. (autobiography)
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