Riding a Spitfire: the story of Margaret Horton The Royal Air Forces Association

In 1952, former Leading Aircraftwoman Margaret Horton recounted a terrifying war-time experience to Air Mail magazine: clinging to the tailplane of a Spitfire as it took to the skies during WW2.

Anyone who worked on the flights at RAF Hibaldstowe – a satellite of Kirton Lindsey in Lincolnshire – in February 1945 would tell you that it was no more than was to be expected of ‘T for Trouble’ – officially AB929. There was nothing wrong with the old kite but a perverted sense of humour, a characteristic that had led others than a Spitfire into a ditch.

In her case it took the unfortunate form of indulging in every misadventure a perverse imagination could devise for the bedevilment of her unfortunate ground crew. But I knew there was no real malice in the creature; she reminded me of one of those wicked old horses that delight in putting their rider in the ditch, but stop at breaking his neck. “She always brings ‘em back alive,” I said reassuringly one day to a pilot who had heard of the old kite’s jinx, little realising how strikingly I was to be called upon to demonstrate my statement.

Panic-stricken moment

At Hibaldstowe, where I was working as a WAAF flight mechanic in 1945, it was a flight order for one of the ground staff to sit on the tail of each Spitfire as it taxied from the dispersal to the distant runway in rough weather, to prevent the wind from tipping the machine over on its nose.

On this occasion my pilot did not receive the order ‘Rough Weather Procedure,’ which was issued from flying control, and, not having seen me jump on the tailplane while the other mechanics were removing the chocks, he took straight off instead of waiting for me to descend upon reaching the runway.

The violently increased rate at which we were taxiing first told me that something was wrong, and I flung myself across the fuselage and grasped the elevator in an attempt to attract the pilot’s attention. I was unable to move it.

Events move fast with a Spitfire, and there seemed only a panic-stricken moment before the cessation of the rushing sensation of travelling along the runway told me that we were airborne.

All hope gone

Newbolt knew what he was writing about when he described the traveller, doomed to certain death from the brigands into whose hands he had fallen, as spending his last hours “in a dream untroubled of hope.” At that moment I was not merely in great danger. I was, to all practical purposes, already dead.

I had no hold other than that of three fingers which I had managed to get round the cut­away portion of the tailplane, there was no possibility of attracting the attention of either the pilot or anyone on the ground, and it seemed so certain that I must roll off the fuselage the first time the aircraft banked that I did not even trouble to wriggle farther across it to balance the weight of my heavy boots.

It was at this moment of realisation that fear left me. My first coherent thought was, “I’ve muffed it for the last time – better me than most people, but I wish it hadn’t happened!”

Nothing much stronger than that. The grimness of any sudden severance from a normal routine, a passing regret – you may laugh if you like, but it’s true – that my NAAFI cigarettes and chocolate rations would be wasted, and a deeper regret that I could not leave a message to tell my mother how easy death had been.

Strangely, although I realised that my family would feel my loss, there was no feeling that I was leaving them. Of anxiety for what was to come there was none, though I was never any braver than the next person, and am in a funk when it comes to climbing ladders or riding bicycles.

Black-out sensation

The force of the slipstream must have been terrific, for there was nothing but that and the precarious hold of my finger-tips to prevent me rolling forward, though the fin made it impossible to slip over the tail of my mount. Before many minutes there was a sensation of blood rushing to my head, a feeling of something pressing me down, and a blackness before my eyes, and I thought with a mild sense of gratitude that death was coming in the easy form of a ‘black-out’.

There was never any sensation of the mist clearing. My next recollection is of a perfectly clear head and an entirely fresh line of thought. The doctrine that good is the source of all power, and evil a figment of our imagination, had long appealed to my reason – now, my own voice seemed to be saying in my ear, was the chance for me to prove it.

Steadily, the idea that there was nothing to harm me took possession of my mind, helped by the clear serene sky, and I knew I was safe whether the flight was to last ten minutes or a couple of hours.

Shortly afterwards I felt the machine drop – so gently that I did not realise the cause until the returning sensation of speed proclaimed that we were back on the runway.

As we slowed down I slipped off the tailplane, ran back for my beret which had remained faithfully on my head until we reached the ground, and made my way back across the grass to the dispersal, while the pilot taxied home round the perimeter road, still unaware why his controls had refused to function.

How, in the circumstances, he achieved that perfect landing I have never understood, but he must have had a harrowing ten minutes in the air. On leaving the runway he had found his elevator almost unserviceable, and after struggling round the circuit at 600 feet had radioed for permission to land.

The flying control officer, who had only that moment been informed by the flight office of my predicament, judged it safest not to tell him of the presence of a passenger, so it was not until he walked indignantly into the flight office to report his aircraft unserviceable that he learnt he was the victim of an unusual case of ‘parasite drag’.

Whatever his feelings, he was off with the next detail, and I should have accompanied him – to the beginning of the run­way only – if he had not implored me, as I prepared to scramble up: “I know you don’t want to lose your nerve, but please don’t come on my tail again!”

No Caterpillar, me…

If ever you meet anyone else who has been in seemingly so hopeless a position that he had given up even trying to save himself, ask him if he felt frightened once he had given up any hope of life, and I think his answer will be the same as mine.

It seems reasonable enough to me. Surely we are only given a fear of death to urge us to cling to life till our destined end, for many people feel so desperate at some time or other during the course of their lives that they might be tempted to end them if death seemed too easy.

Once the last human possibility of escape has vanished fear also departs as being of no further use. I didn’t manage to crawl into the “Caterpillar Club” with the claim that my life had been ‘suspended by a thread,’ though I felt a much better example of a parasite than any of its members who had saved their lives in the air by their own action.Authority divided the blame equally between the Flight Commander, the pilot, and myself; my friends who witnessed the incident complained of damage to their nervous systems, while those who were off duty at the time chided me for doing circus tricks when they were not there to see. And by the end of a week I had only to hear anyone whistling ‘She flew through the air with the greatest of ease,’ or ‘One of the girls that men forget”’ to start looking round for a lethal weapon.

And ‘T for Trouble’? I never knew the end of my Battle of Britain veteran as she was posted to another squadron a few days after her prank, but I suppose she, too, is now rusting on some civilian scrapheap as ‘ceasing to fulfil service requirements’.

No matter to what base uses she may have returned, to me she remains the proof that, as any Battle of Britain pilot will tell you: “A Spitfire never let anybody down.”

Margaret Horton’s first-hand account was published in July 1952 in Air Mail, the RAF Association members’ magazine. Non-members can receive Air Mail, plus other membership benefits, by signing up here.