Peter M. Brothers

Peter Malem Brothers (Peter M. Brothers) began his service with the 32nd Hurricane Squadron in October 1936, becoming a flight commander in 1938. His first victories came in May 1940: on the 18th, he shot down a Bf-109 near Cambrai, and on the 23rd, a Bf-110 over Ypres. During the Battle of Britain, he destroyed eight aircraft, including five Messerschmitt Bf 109E.

Combat Experiences and Tactics

“Any of us often had to face overwhelming enemy air superiority. We thought: ‘Good Lord, how are we going to fight such a pack?’ From the rear, enemy bombers were quite well protected and met us with a wall of fire. But if you managed to get higher or attack them head-on at an equal altitude, there was an opportunity to break their battle formation.”

“As a Hurricane pilot, I was somewhat afraid of and even respected the ‘one hundred and nine’. Firstly, it dived faster. If a Bf-109 pilot spotted you, he’d fire a burst, then could sharply dive down and immediately begin rapidly gaining altitude. You just couldn’t keep track of him. The only thing left to do was to roll upside down and immediately perform a loop. In this case, the ‘one hundred and nine’, performing a climb, would end up at the same level as the Hurricane and enter the gunsight.”

“Once I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the biggest Bf-109 I had ever encountered. At least, that’s what it seemed like to me. It fired at me and immediately soared upwards, but in its place appeared my number 2, who was also firing at my plane! When we landed, I put my wingman through two days of gunnery training and finally told him, ‘Don’t shoot at friends… And if you do shoot at someone, be sure you hit!’”

Although Hurricanes mainly operated against bombers, they were always in danger of being attacked by escorting fighters. As a defensive measure, Peter Brothers always tried to fly with a slight rudder deflection, which caused his aircraft to slightly slip sideways. This created serious problems for an attacking fighter in determining the lead angle and made accurate aiming at the Hurricane difficult. Of course, it would be best not to let the enemy get close at all, but in a real combat situation, this was not always possible.

Brothers himself noted: “Visibility from the Hurricane cockpit was quite good, except for the rear hemisphere. The mirror, naturally, helped, but not as well as it might seem. It only gave a sense of high speed, and not at all an idea of what was happening behind.”

Leadership and Later Victories

On September 9, he was transferred to the 257th Squadron, which by then had suffered heavy losses. Together with the new squadron commander, Bob Tuck, they brought it out of its difficult position and led it into battle on September 15. In this operation, Brothers achieved two more victories. However, in the final stage of the Battle of Britain, when raids primarily involved the ‘one hundred and nines’, which had a higher ceiling, Hurricanes no longer had much chance of success. Therefore, Brothers had no more victories in 1940.

He commented on this: “At high altitude, cold was a constant problem. The canopy would fog up, and then the windscreen would be covered with ice both inside and out. I had to scrape this ice. True, the side windows were made of plexiglass and provided good visibility. Goggles caused terrible discomfort, but they greatly helped when it was necessary to parachute, and protected the eyes from burns if your plane was on fire.”

After resting in January 1941, Brothers led the 457th Australian Squadron from June of that year, and then the 602nd, which flew the same type of aircraft. In October 1942, he commanded an air wing at Tangmere, then served for some time at the headquarters of the 10th Air Group. In 1944, he took command of an air wing at Exeter, and during the Allied landings in Normandy, he led the Culmhead wing. There he recorded his 16th and final victory, shooting down an FW190 on August 7, 1944. After the war, Peter Brothers rose to Air Commodore and retired in 1973.