Date:	Wednesday 19 February 1941
Time:
Type:	Messerschmitt Bf 110 E-1
Owner/operator:	8./ZG 26 Luftwaffe
Registration:	3886
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 2
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Mediterranean Sea, off Mersa Brega -   Libya
Phase:	Combat
Nature:	Military
Departure airport:
Destination airport:

Narrative:
On 19 February 1941 three 3 RAAF Squadron Hurricanes flown by F/O Alan Arthur Gatward (Hurricane I V7552), F/Lt John Perrin (Hurricane I V7757) and F/O Alan Boyd set out for the Agedabia-El Agheila area, from where they were tasked to carry out an offensive patrol. They encountered nine Ju87s from II;/StG 2 dive-bombing the village of Mersa Brega.

Perrin took a look around for escorting enemy fighters before attacking together with Gatward, leaving Boyd as cover above. Perrin shot down the Ju 87 R-1 WNr 5455 of 5./StG 2 flown by Unteroffizier Kurt Stuber and Unteroffizier Walter Nentwig, whom both survived but both suffered wounds in this action.

At this time four Bf110s from 8./ZG 26 attacked them. Two of them, flown by Leutnant Alfred Wehmeyer and Unteroffizier Max Hohmann, attacked Gatward and shot him down. Gatward was last seen by Perrin in flames and crashing into the seashore, and was killed.

Jock Perrin claimed one of the Bf 110’s shot down , but whilst attacking a second, a cannon shell hit his reserve tank setting his Hurricane on fire. He continued to attack the Messerschmitt until his ammunition was exhausted, but as he was too low to bale out he crash landed in flames and was then strafed by the Bf 110’s being slightly wounded. He was claimed shot down by Feldwebel Richard Heller and the Staffelkapitän Oberleutnant Prang. He had shot down Leutnant Wehmeyer’s Bf 110 E-1 (WkNr. 3886), which he managed to ditch into the sea. Wehmeyer and his wounded gunner, Obergefreiter Wilhelm Wurst, got into their dinghy and were picked up 48 hours later by an Axis rescue craft.

Perrin was wounded in one eye and severely burned. He was picked up by a patrol car and taken to Benina were he related to his colleagues that as he staggered from his burning aircraft following the crash-landing he was repeatedly machine-gunned by the Messerschmitts, which dived on him as, half blinded by oil and blood, he made a desperate dash for shelter of a tree: "It was the fastest 100 yards I have ever run and, when I barged into that tree in my haste, I saw stars by the thousands."

He was sent to hospital in Tobruk. On the night of his arrival Tobruk was raided and a bomb exploded close to the hospital, with the result that he ended up on the floor with a window frame draped around his neck. Shortly after this all the hospital patients in Tobruk was evacuated to Alexandria aboard the hospital ship RAMB 111, but Ju87s sank this en route. He fortunately was lucky to survive.

On 20 March, he was awarded a DFC for the combat on 19 February, as the second pilot of 3 RAAF Squadron. His Majesty, the King at Buckingham Palace on 27 February 1945, presented the award to him. Sufficiently recovered he rejoined the squadron at the start of April.

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/commonwealth_gatward.htm
http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/commonwealth_perrin.htm
"A history of the Mediterranean Air War 1940-1945. Volume One: North Africa June 1940 - January 1942", by Christopher Shores and Giovanni Massimello with Russel Guest. ISBN 978-1-908117-07-6
http://web.archive.org/web/20120207072413/http://www.3squadron.org.au/subpages/roll.htm
"Batailles Aériennes n° 34: La Lufwaffe en Afrique. 1941: des origines au déclenchement de l’opération Crusader" (by Jean-Louis Roba. French magazine. Fall 2005)
[LINK NOT WORKING ANYMORE:http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/libya/map/m4477127/mersa_brega.html]

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
19-Jul-2017 10:00	Laurent Rizzotti	Added
15-Mar-2020 09:57	DG333	Updated [Operator, Narrative, Operator]