The 100th anniversary of the birth of Karel Kuttelwascher, the RAF’s greatest night intruder pilot
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of my wife’s father, a Czech pilot with the wartime RAF whose story I wrote in the book “Night Hawk” published by William Kimber in 1985 and to be reprinted by Fonthill Media in 2017.
Flight Lieutenant Karel Kuttelwascher,
DFC and Bar
Together with many other Czechoslovak pilots, Kuttelwascher was able to make his way from Poland to France where he was drafted into the Foreign Legion to await the imminent outbreak of war. When war came, he flew with the French Air Force in the fierce but brief Battle of France. He claimed a number of German aircraft destroyed and damaged.
Then, when France fell, he managed to reach Algeria, escaped to Morocco, and took ship to Britain where he immediately joined the beleaguered Royal Air Force. He was assigned to the RAF’s oldest unit, the legendary No. 1 Squadron in time to earn his place as one of ‘The Few’.
Kuttelwacher eventually spent a full two years with No. 1 Squadron. During the early circus operations, in each of the months of April, May and June 1941, he shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 off the French coast – but his score would not remain at three.
Meanwhile No. 1 Squadron experienced more excitement with their involvement in the famous Channel Dash when, on 12 February 1942, the two German battle cruisers ‘Scharnhorst’ and ‘Gneisenau’ raced from the French port of Brest and set sail for Norway. In a cannon-blazing attack on three accompanying destroyers, No.1 Squadron lost two aircraft, but Kut saw his shells exploding on the decks of his destroyer and judged the damage to be considerable.
By this time, No. 1 Squadron was based at its ancestral home at Tangmere. It was in April, May & June of 1942 that Kuttelwascher – notwithstanding his German surname – became the scourge of the Luftwaffe bombers operating from France and the Low Countries. The type of operation was called night intrusion. This involved flying a long range Hurricane IIC, aptly named the ‘Night Reaper’, over enemy bases during the couple of weeks around the full moon. He would endeavour to locate German bombers as they were taking off or landing, so that they were low, slow and vulnerable to his cannon.
In just three months, Kuttelwascher destroyed 15 bombers and damaged a further five. On one memorable occasion, he knocked out three Heinkel bombers in just four minutes. These exploits brought him the Distinguished Flying Cross twice in a mere 42 days.
He was the RAF’s greatest night intruder ace and, with his total score of 18, the top-scoring Czech pilot of the Second World War. The wartime media dubbed him ”the Czech night hawk”.
You can find more details about his exploits here.