As the Battle of Britain raged in the skies above the English Channel throughout the Summer and Fall of 1940, RAF Pilot Officer D.H. “Nobby” Clarke was ready to play his part in fighting off the Nazi invasion of his homeland, the last Allied hope in Europe. Day after day, British Hurricanes and Spitfires bravely dueled with German Messerschmitt Bf 109s, but Pilot Officer Clarke, prepared to serve King and country, was given a different kind of mission in a very different kind of aircraft.

At 5:30pm on September 26, Clarke was already airborne in his unwieldy Blackburn Roc, which had shown itself to be ineffective as a fighter but made for a trusty search and rescue aircraft, when he received a report of British airmen being shot down off the coast of the Isle of Wight. With intrepid gunner Sergeant Hunt in tow, Clarke bounded towards the search area, determined to arrive on time to rescue his countrymen from the chilly waters below.

Arriving on the scene, the pair desperately scanned the ocean for survivors, their eyes straining against the rapidly encroaching darkness. 45 minutes passed, with no luck. The only other sign of life was the faint outline of a friendly Swordfish seaplane in the distance, probably engaged in a similar search and rescue mission.

But as the two aircraft drew nearer, Clarke noticed something was amiss. The size, the markings—it just didn't add up. Going in for a closer look, his suspicions were confirmed: they had stumbled upon a German Heinkel He 59 seaplane, out to save its own downed comrades.
Clarke’s awkward and slowmoving Roc was all he had, and he was about to put it to the test in what would become one of World War 2’s most bizarre showdowns.



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