A tragic blow came on September 2, when my pal Arthur Howard and his observer were killed in an Oxford. They were out on an R/T homing and map reading exercise one morning when their aeroplane, V3150, went out of control in cloud. The story went the rounds that the recovery from a spin may have been a bit too violent and the machine dived in when the ailerons and elevators broke away.
Blokes were killing themselves right, left and centre in those ropey Blenheims, which we had now begun to fly at night. As far as the prospect of night flying is concerned, there is really nothing to say, except that ground control was good but the Blenheims were bad and the accidents frequent.
At the end of September 1941, the aircrew sergeants of my course moved out of the Church Fenton mess, to be rehoused in an old country house known as Barkston Towers about three miles from the aerodrome. It was a marvellous old place, with ornate gardens and a splendid interior. George, our cook, had been in the submarine service in the last war and vowed he would never go near an aeroplane. He was good to us though and served up colossal meals and we lived like kings to the end of the course.
Together now with our observers, we put in a tremendous amount of both day and night flying in an effort to become an efficient team and yet again the end of the course was rushed. It was not the hard work I minded, it was more of a desire to get away from the OTU in general and the CFI, Sqn Ldr Aikens in particular. The CO at that time was Group Captain Richard Atcherley, who with his twin brother David, also a flyer, had earned quite a reputation as an airman and was an all-round good type. The chief ground instructor was Sqn Ldr R de W K Winlaw who, with a variety of colleagues, went over the now familiar range of subjects slanted this time towards our operational requirements.
One week before the course was due to finish, on October 17, another blow fell on my small circle of friends, Sgt T C ‘Tosh’ Bramley was killed during an altitude test at night in Blenheim IV, V5622. His observer, Wood, had been off flying for a few days so, luckily for him, he was not on board when the aeroplane crashed a mile south of Everingham village in Yorkshire. ‘Tosh’ was the fourteenth casualty in three months.
The course duly finished and on the day I left I found out I was due to fly a Beaufighter for the first time. However, we were rushed out of the OTU in such a hurry that I did not get the chance but from what I heard about their handling qualities, I can’t say I was particularly sorry to miss the opportunity.
Those of us left in my group of pals said our farewells again and on October 28 1941, almost one year to the day after I joined up, parted company to go to our respective operational stations. Church Fenton at least had lived up to its grim reputation while I was there. Now I was off to Wittering, not far from my home town of Spalding, for my first operational posting to 1453 Air Target Illumination Flight.
We will digress at this point to take a closer look at the Turbinlite concept. The emergence of the Turbinlite aeroplane has its roots in the air situation following the Battle of Britain. Due to the not unreasonable previous concentration on single-seat high-performance day fighters, when the Luftwaffe turned to its night offensive there was no suitable specialist RAF night fighter or control system to take them on. As we have seen earlier, those few AI-equipped Blenheims that did exist had little success but like all such ideas, that was more a reflection of the very newness of this particular man/machine system, together with inadequate aircraft, rather than an indication of the true potential of the AI-night fighter concept itself. Lack of results seems to have diverted attention away from acceptance that the subject had simply been neglected and that it needed a focused and swift injection of resources. Critics of the system – and there is always competition for resources or competing ideas – were the catalyst for some of these alternative ideas gaining a lot more prominence than their true practicality really warranted. Among the latter was the idea to mount a searchlight in the nose of an aeroplane. The RAF had acquired some Douglas Boston aircraft originally destined for the French and this was the most suitable aircraft to hand.
Now, to the modern eye at least, any basic description of the Turbinlite Havoc concept cannot fail but engender some incredulity about its practicality. It was based around the American-designed Douglas Boston twin-engine light bomber, designated by the RAF as Havoc I, with its nose compartment sawn off and replaced by an enormously powerful searchlight.
The idea was the brainchild of Wing Commander W Helmore and the light, named Turbinlite, was built by the General Electric Company (GEC) in England and powered by forty-eight 12-volt batteries that weighed a total of about 2,000lb. These were stowed away on reinforced flooring in the bomb-bay, the batteries themselves being laid out in four banks of twelve with two banks placed in each of the two halves of the bomb-bay. They were charged up from an external ground-based source with special attention given to providing forced ventilation inside the aeroplane to avoid the build up of hydrogen fumes during the charging process. A description of the Turbinlite by another former pilot, Michael Allen DFC**, will convey the sheer power of this airborne searchlight:
Its batteries were capable of producing a current of 1,400 amps and discharging totally in two minutes. The lamp – reputed to be the most powerful in the world at that time – produced a beam from mechanically adjusted carbon rods located in front of a para-elliptical mirror reflector with a small frontal area approximating to the size of that cross-section of the forward fuselage. The light thus produced had an illumination intensity of over 800,000 watts [try to imagine 8,000 x 100 watt domestic light bulbs] and blazed out as a horizontal, sausage-shaped, beam of light that illuminated an area 950 yards wide at one mile range. It was not, however, simply a case of detecting a target then throwing a light-switch! The carbon rods took some seconds to bring the arc-light to full power during which time, in order to avoid a situation where the beam was not at full strength but nevertheless provided an enemy with a juicy light to fire at, the light source and reflector were hidden behind shutter doors on the inner surface of the lamp glass. Only when maximum luminosity was achieved (code name: Boiling!) did the pilot open the shutters, expose the beam and (hopefully) pinpoint the target like a blinded moth.
Equipped with an AI Mk IV set, with arrowhead transmitter antennae protruding either side of the lamp glass, the aeroplane carried a crew of two. The pilot sat in a single seat front cockpit and a radar operator occupied the glazed rear compartment originally intended for a gunner. But, in this AI configuration the Boston carried no armament, because with the weight of the batteries, light and radar there was no spare capacity for guns and ammunition. Despite this peculiar arrangement and – as will be seen – the lack of combat success, it nevertheless provided night fighter crews with many months of valuable – if boring – night flying and radar interception practice. This was to stand them in good stead when the Luftwaffe stepped up its activity over Britain and also when RAF night fighters carried the fight to continental and other skies.
One of an eventual ten such units in Fighter Command’s 11 and 12 Groups, 1453 Air Target Illumination Flight, to give it its full title, was formed at RAF Wittering in July 1941 from elements of 1451 Flight which itself was based at RAF Hunsdon. CO of the new flight was Sqn Ldr Kenneth Blair DFC – already mentioned in Chapter 3 – who had seen active service both in France with 85 Squadron and in the Battle of Britain and was transferred from 151 Squadron based at Wittering at the time.
These Havocs cooperated with one or more single-engine fighters, usually Hurricanes, but on occasion Defiants or even Spitfires are recorded as taking on the role of satellite fighter. Take-off would be carried out in close company, with the Hurricane keeping formation to the rear of the Havoc by reference to a few tiny, variable-intensity lights playing over broad white paint stripes on the upper and lower rear surface of the wings.
Of course, to formate in this manner at night would have been no mean feat in itself but how was this unwieldy group going to bring the enemy into combat? Well, the scenario
goes like this. Ground control would vector the Havoc onto a bandit to a point where the AI operator could take over and use airborne radar to try to pick up the target. If a target was found the AI operator guided his pilot towards visual range. The pilot might of course be fortunate to get a visual contact first but the whole idea was to bring the Havoc within searchlight range – without needing to rely on a visual sighting – and that was when the Turbinlite would be switched on. The pilot of the formating satellite fighter was supposed to spot the enemy in the beam, move in on it and shoot it down. There were many imponderables that could affect the success of this sequence of events – not least that it was highly unlikely that an enemy aircraft so illuminated would stay mesmerised in the beam sufficiently long enough for the satellite fighter to catch it! Or, that either of the two RAF pilots would not have their night vision ruined by the sudden intense light. So far, successful interceptions had been a quite rare event.
It was in July 1941 that 151 Squadron began cooperating with the Turbinlite Havoc unit at Wittering. As a first step several of its aircraft and pilots were sent to RAF Hunsdon to learn the ropes from one of the first Havoc units formed. When they returned to Wittering almost all flying in August, September and much of October was then devoted to training with 1453 Flight.
As the flight was more or less up to personnel strength, training started in earnest with the Hurricane and Defiant boys from 151 Squadron. It was recorded in 151 Squadron’s Operational Record Book that “on October 22, Pilot Officers Stevens in Hurricane Z3261 and McRitchie in Defiant AA431 carried out a pukka Turbinlite patrol for the first time.”
It also records, “Plt Off Stevens broke away and independently destroyed an enemy aircraft.” On deeper investigation this latter statement turns out to be an over-simplification of an event which provides yet another example of the hunting spirit of the legendary Plt Off Richard Stevens. The wording also implies the incident took place in the vicinity of RAF Wittering and of the other aircraft on the exercise but that, too, is not the case. This is what actually happened.
Flying a cannon-armed Hurricane IIc, one of four of that model now on strength, Richard Stevens indeed took off from Wittering, at 20.30 hours, on a Turbinlite exercise but early into the flight he claimed to have lost contact with the formation during a tight turn.
There was no moon but it was a clear, starry, night, so rather than land back at base he looked about him and saw a lot of AA fire to the north-west. He was at that time to the west of Wittering so he headed off in the direction of the AA fire in the hope of finding a target. At about 21.30, lo and behold his eagle eyes spotted an aircraft 250 yards away, flying slightly above him at 10,000 feet. He was not certain but thought it to be a Heinkel He111. Closing in to 150 yards he was left in no doubt when gunfire came towards him from the dorsal and ventral positions, so he opened fire with several bursts, scoring hits on the fuselage as he followed the bomber down until it dived into the ground and exploded. Stevens had actually begun his interception twenty miles south-west of Wrexham – almost a hundred miles from Wittering.
His fuel state was now critical and he was forced to land at RAF Wrexham at 22.35 hours where it was found the Hurricane had just ten gallons of fuel left in its tanks. He refuelled and landed back at Wittering at 01.30. It was later confirmed that a Junkers Ju88, 7T+CH of I/Kustenfliegergruppe 606, part of a raid on Liverpool, had been shot down at Adderley near Market Drayton but despite all his efforts, Stevens was obliged to share the kill with a 256 Squadron Defiant crew – on whose patch this was – who made a claim for the same time and place. But it was a better outcome than being tied to a Havoc! This was Richard Stevens’ last known kill.
His meteoric rise as a ‘cat’s eye’ night fighter pilot began on January 15/16 1941 and ended with his death, just eleven months later on December 15/16 when, having been posted to 253 Squadron, he was shot down over Holland on his first intruder sortie.
Jack Cheney continues:
The weather deteriorated into December but practice interceptions continued whenever there was a break. In spite of the cold, our dispersal was very comfortable during the bad spells and we sat around line-shooting whenever there was little else to do.
However, the calm was quickly shattered when, on December 18, Sgt James Sudders, who had been with us at Church Fenton and posted in during October, spun in and crashed his Havoc at Stowgate railway crossing, between Crowland and Market Deeping (Lincs). At this time radio observers outnumbered pilots so it was quite usual for a pilot to have two observers attached to him. On this occasion, Sudders had both Sgt Eric Welch, his regular RO, and Sgt William Fradley, a spare RO, in the back of BD120 and they were all killed in the accident.
Later on in December there were a few sorties in company with Hurricanes of 151 Squadron to try out a new wheeze. The Havocs were to fly around at 5,000 feet dropping flares on possible targets as an alternative method of illuminating the enemy. Bit of a shambles all round! Since the flares were loaded in the bomb bay, the Havocs used for these sorties were the battery-less non-Turbinlite aircraft that the squadron had on charge for crew training purposes.
As we had not yet been declared fully operational, the whole flight was allowed Christmas leave, which suited me down to the ground being so near to home. While I was away some members of the flight, being less fortunate, wangled a trip to the GEC factory in Coventry.
There was precious little flying for us in January 1942 and we were still ‘non-op’. The bad weather made our other activities scarce but we did have several ice hockey matches on the frozen Whitewater lake at the edge of the airfield. There was also bags of snow-clearing to be done and it was both back-breaking and heart-breaking as, every time an area was cleared, it snowed up very soon after.
The CO was dead keen on playing soldiers so, when flying was scrubbed, we used up many Very cartridges and thunderflashes on these ground exercises. I ruined a perfectly good pair of flying gauntlets putting up his damn barbed wire fences.
In February the snow abated a little and although it was still cold enough to keep skating, we were able to get some flying in too. My pride took a bit of a blow when I taxied a Havoc into one of the dispersal bay walls. The brakes failed and the starboard engine cowling was a trifle bent but there was no serious damage and I got away with it.
The station dance, held on February 17 in Stamford Grammar School, was a good opportunity to give Flt Lt George Turner, one of 1453’s original pilots, a good send-off. He was being posted to RAF West Malling and a replacement crew arrived from 51 OTU Cranfield even before he had left.
A milestone was also reached before the end of that month when the flight was, at long last, declared operational. Night readiness routine was started, with bags of panic, Mae Wests and things. Despite all this readiness routine though there was not much trade and the only excitement occurred during the night-flying tests (NFT), when one could indulge in a spot of low-level work over the wide-open space of the Fens. I was warned off doing this after word got back to the CO about my regular aerial visits to my home in Spalding, which also happened to be just across the road from my old school. My mother – and of course the boys of the school – got an enormous kick from the sight of my big black Havoc thundering down the school road just above rooftop height. But it had obviously upset someone else!
On March 18, Plt Off Ole Bechgaard, a Swedish pilot, pranged Havoc BJ467, which happened to be Sgt Joe Gunnill’s usual mount. Any Bechgaard landing was a sight to behold at the best of times and all the ground crews usually turned out to watch when he came in. This particular landing was a beauty. He came in too fast after an NFT and was forced to brake very hard. This put such a strain on the nose wheel gear that it collapsed and the aeroplane slid merrily along the runway with its tail cocked up in the air. I pitied poor old Andy Cunningham, his observer, in the back seat!
Shortly before the end of March the flight was re-equipped with Douglas Boston III aircraft to replace the lower powered Havoc I
s. These new mounts were handled gingerly at first, in view of the extra power, but when we got used to them they were found to be aces up on the old Havocs.
Two new crews arrived from Cranfield on April 7 but sadly only one week later one of these was lost in an accident. Plt Off Jacques Henri Horrell (English father, French mother) and Sgt Samuel Capewell were on an NFT with Plt Off Frank Darycott BSc, the flight’s special signals (radar) expert, also on board. An enquiry into the crash suggested that Horrell became aware that two unidentified Spitfires were diving on him from astern. It was surmised that he took violent evasive action and fell into a spin from which he could not recover, the aeroplane crashing at Aldwincle St Peter in Northamptonshire.
Now that the weather was getting better, our thoughts turned to outdoor pursuits to relieve the waiting. Someone had the bright idea that we should take up sailing on the lake near dispersal, so a sailing dinghy was purchased from the aircrew fund. The first trips were made, a bit too daringly, and in the strong April winds quite a few duckings followed, including Mike who tried to go solo too soon.
Flying livened up a bit in May when mine was one of three crews detached for readiness duty at RAF Swanton Morley, Norfolk. Each day the detachment took off at dusk for Swanton and returned to Wittering at dawn the next morning. 151 Squadron had by now exchanged its Hurricanes for Mosquitoes so the flight was now cooperating with 486 (New Zealand) Squadron instead. Another change of scene occurred in the middle of this month, too, when I underwent a blind approach course with 1529 BAT Flight at Collyweston, Wittering’s second satellite. It was a pleasant change to fly a single-engine aeroplane again, this time the Miles Master II.
No Place for Chivalry Page 13
