1 Group

by Patrick Otter

  Events at Hucknall to mark the reforming of 1 Group appear to have passed without such ceremony. Hucknall, five miles from Nottingham, was one of the oldest airfields in the country and before the war had been used by a variety of units, notably 104 Squadron which had flown the ill-fated Fairey Battle from there in 1938.

  HQ 1 Group came into being officially on June 22, 1940 but it wasn’t until five days later that it’s first Air Officer Commanding, Air Commodore John Breen, arrived to take control of what was then a pitifully small command. It was made up of the remnants of four squadrons which had just returned from France where they had been horribly mauled in the air and on the ground by the Luftwaffe. They were scattered across the country awaiting new airfields from where, hopefully, they could be refitted and resume operations. It must have seemed a daunting task even for the most optimistic of those on the HQ staff.

  The pre-war 1 Group, created when the RAF came into being in 1918, had been spread across the South Midlands and was equipped with Fairey Battles, single-engined light bombers which were obsolete even before they went into squadron service. In September 1939 it was formally disbanded and its 10 squadrons were formed into five wings of the grandiosely-titled Advanced Air Striking Force and sent to France under the control of Air Vice Marshal ‘Pip’ Playfield. The Battle crews were under no illusion about the inadequacy of their aircraft, a point bloodily brought home to them within days of arriving in France when four aircraft of 150 Squadron, later to be part of the new 1 Group, were shot down by Me 109s on a reconnaissance operation near Saarbrucken, five men being killed and a sixth, Sgt G. Springett, becoming one of the first RAF prisoners-of-war. A fifth aircraft was so badly damaged it crashed on return to the squadron’s airfield at Challerange.

  A Fairey Battle of 12 Squadron in France early in 1940. (Author’s collection)

  Sgt Rex Wheeldon was one of the men who flew Battles with the AASF in France and he later recalled: ‘It was a responsive aeroplane and it had some agreeable qualities, but not as an operational machine. It simply lacked the guts to travel very quickly. I did once manage to get 300mph out of one, but that was in a dive over a bombing range. Normally, it stooged around at 160mph and any 109s around could leave us standing. It could only carry four 250lb bombs and it was far too slow if there were any fighters in the area.’ Wheeldon was fortunate enough to be on leave when the Battle finally came up against the might of the Luftwaffe in May 1940, arriving back in France in time to see the end of the fighting there and to fly his 12 Squadron aircraft back to England.

  That winter was to be a testing time for the AASF. Not only did their occasional brushes with the Luftwaffe show just how inadequate the Battle was, they had to endure a miserable time on the ground in bitterly cold conditions with many of the men having to sleep in tents. But that, it transpired, was the frozen calm before the fiery storm which was to descend on the Allied forces on May 10, 1940.

  On that first day the AASF sent 32 Battles to help try to stem the German breakthrough in Belgium. Thirteen were shot down and several others so badly damaged they never flew again. Ten of those lost were from 12, 103, 142 and 150 squadrons, those which were later to form the nucleus of 1 Group.

  Two days later came an operation that led to the award of the first RAF Victoria Crosses of the war. 12 Squadron was tasked with attempting to destroy two bridges over the Albert Canal, which linked Antwerp and Liege and was a key defence line in Belgium. But it was a line which had already been breached and German armour was pouring over it. Five Battles, manned by volunteer crews, were sent, two to the bridge at Vroenhoven and three more to Veldwezelt. All five were shot down. Leading the attack on Veldwezelt was F/Lt Donald Garland, a 22-year-old Irishman. Despite the intense ground fire from an estimated 300 guns defending the bridge, he led a successful attack only for his aircraft to crash in flames just yards from the target. Just three men survived as prisoners-of-war from this attack and a month later the award of posthumous VCs were announced for Garland and his observer, Sgt Tom Gray. Astonishingly, there was no award for their 20-year-old wireless operator/ gunner, LAC Lawrence Reynolds, who died with them in their flaming Fairey Battle, leading many to conclude that elitism still existed in the Royal Air Force. They were not wrong but that, along with many more pre-war shibboleths, were to vanish in the months and years ahead.

  The rapid German advance saw the AASF squadrons being forced to move continually from airfield to airfield as the number of serviceable aircraft and available crews dwindled at an alarming rate. In the first 10 days the four squadrons lost 49 aircraft in operations or in bombing attacks on their airstrips, while 44 aircrew died, six were badly injured and 33 became prisoners. And it was far from being over.

  The Battles were used in near-suicide missions during the Dunkirk evacuation and then continued to support Allied troops as the Germans pushed south of Paris and into Britanny.

  Finally, on June 18, what was left of the Advanced Air Striking Force flew back to Britain with the ground crews being left to do what they could to get out from the few French ports not in German hands. In six weeks of fighting the AASF lost 159 Battles, 87 of them from 12, 103, 142 and 150 Squadrons. Suffering almost as badly were the Blenheims of 2 Group, some flying from England and others from France. In one raid alone on Gemblouz on May 17 82 Squadron, flying from Watton in Norfolk, lost 12 aircraft.

  While all this was going on frantic work had been taking place back in England to reorganise the dwindling resources of Bomber Command, including plans to reform 1 Group. The RAF had at its disposal 2 Group operating Blenheims and 3 Group with Wellingtons in East Anglia, 4 Group with its Whitleys in Yorkshire and 5 Group flying Hampdens from Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.

  In what was to prove a far-reaching decision, the Air Ministry decided to divide Lincolnshire in two, with 5 Group in the south and spilling over into Nottinghamshire and the new 1 Group in the north. The problem was that, at the time, there were only two operational bomber airfields north of Scampton: Hemswell, which was still occupied by 5 Group, and Binbrook, construction work on which was just about complete. A huge airfield expansion programme was being hastily drawn up and maps of much of eastern England were being pored over to find where best to put them but, in the meantime, it was a case of making do with what you had.

  This Battle of 12 Squadron came to grief after a heavy landing at Berry au Bac in France in the spring of 1940. It was later recovered, repaired and was flown briefly from Binbrook by the squadron. It was withdrawn from service in the early autumn and the following year was part of a consignment of Battles shipped to Canada where it was used by the No 8 Bombing and Gunnery School at Lethbridge, Alberta until 1945. (Wickenby Archive)

  The four squadrons earmarked as the nucleus of 1 Group had arrived back in England with what Battles had survived the French debâcle just days before and were scattered far and wide awaiting orders. 12 Squadron went first to another 5 Group station, Finningley in South Yorkshire, only a few miles from where 1 Group HQ would later be based. There it remained until July 3 when, re-equipped with 18 Battles, it made the short flight to Binbrook, high on the Lincolnshire Wolds west of Grimsby where it was later joined by 142 Squadron. 103 Squadron’s air contingent arrived at Abingdon on July 15, moving a day later to Honington in Suffolk before moving again on July 3 to Newton in Nottinghamshire. It was joined there on the same day by 150 Squadron which arrived via Abingdon and Stradishall in Suffolk.

  Ground personnel from 103 and 150 Squadrons had escaped from France through the port of Brest and they were to join the air contingent at Newton, under the command of the popular W/Cmdr T.C. Dickens. Newton, although itself far from finished, was something of a revelation after the primitive conditions the squadrons had endured in France. It was remembered as ‘a really comfortable place’, with no shortage of fresh produce from local farms, plenty of attractive girls and just 10 miles from the delights of Nottingham.

  It was W/Cmdr Dickens who led 103 on its first operation as
a 1 Group Squadron, three aircraft leaving to attack targets around Rotterdam on the night of July 16, although one had to turn back with instrument failure. Further attacks followed but 103’s first ‘loss’ was down to an over-enthusiastic member of its ground staff who, tired of waiting for a pilot to move a Battle out of a hangar, decided to do the job himself and ended up colliding with a second machine, both Battles being wrecked beyond repair. What happened to the hapless mechanic is not recorded.

  142 Squadron had flown directly to Lincolnshire, landing at Waddington on July 16, before joining 12 Squadron at Binbrook on July 3.

  A rare photograph of five of 103 Squadron’s air gunners, pictured soon after the squadron converted to Wellingtons at Newton. All five had survived Fairey Battle operations with the squadron in the summer of 1940. (Elsham Wolds Association)

  Among the first men to fly into Binbrook was LAC Les Frith, a wireless operator/gunner with 142 Squadron. He had joined the RAF in 1938 and had gone out to France with the AASF and later recalled that there were few of the old faces from the squadron’s days at pre-war Bicester when they returned to England. All the wireless operator/air gunners had gone out to France as AC2s, the lowest rank in the Air Force. They had then become AC1s before, finally, becoming Leading Aircraftsmen. Imagine their surprise, therefore, to discover on their return that all trainee wireless operator/air gunners were now sergeants, with more pay and more privileges than those who had been doing the fighting! The returnees had to wait another few weeks for their promotions to go through.

  When Frith and his crew arrived at Binbrook they found the place still occupied by civilian workers and it was only then that they learned that many of their ground crews and much of their equipment had been lost with the bombing and sinking of the converted liner Lancastria off St Nazaire on June 17 when an estimated 3,000 of the five thousand or more service personnel being evacuated from France were killed in what was Britain’s worst maritime disaster. News of the sinking was kept quiet for some considerable time as it was judged the county had enough to digest without this latest disaster.

  Their first job at Binbrook was to help prepare the airfield defences, which meant filling sandbags and mounting vintage Vickers K machine guns around the control tower and hangars. The men were all issued with tin helmets and gas masks and, as Les recalled in his memoirs, it felt more like being at the front line than on a Lincolnshire airfield. Much to the amusement of the airmen, two tanks which dated back to the First World War arrived at the airfield and they were hidden away in a nearby copse, emerging only occasionally for airfield defence exercises. Nine Hawker Hector army co-operation biplanes were also briefly stationed at Binbrook, from 613 Squadron which was in the process of converting to Lysanders.

  The second operation mounted by 1 Group came on the night of July 21/22 when six Battles of 103 and 150 Squadrons left Newton to attack invasion barges in Dutch ports. The damage caused is not recorded but, given the tiny bomb load a Fairey Battle could carry over such a distance, it wasn’t likely to have been much. The fact that the crews were untrained in night operations and were flying aircraft which were manifestly unsuited for such tasks is an indication of the desperate measures then being taken to forestall the threatened invasion.

  Les Frith recalled that crews were nervous about flying more than 200 miles across the open sea in their single-engined Battles but the Merlin engines never missed a beat and there was not a single engine failure recorded. Over France they met some fierce anti-aircraft fire and the operations further exposed the Battle’s severe limitations as a light bomber. For the crews it was dangerous, cold and uncomfortable but the Binbrook crews did gain some very valuable experience for what was to follow.

  Further operations were carried on over the nights to come but the first casualties suffered by 1 Group came purely by accident. On July 27 150 Squadron had been prepared for another night raid when a bomb fell from the underwing mount on one of its aircraft at Newton, starting a fire. As a large group of airmen drawn from 150’s ground crews and its HQ staff attempted to fight the blaze the bomb exploded, killing seven of them and badly injuring another four. Among the dead was F/O Walter Blom, who had survived operations in France with the squadron and had just been awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross.

  Before the balloon went up: 12 Squadron personnel pictured under canvas in France in 1939. They are identified as Lofty Flay, Charlie Councell, Les Young, Tich Bowden and Jack Wright. (Wickenby Archive)

  1 Group didn’t have to wait long for its first losses in action. The following night six Battles left Binbrook, four from 142 and two from 12 Squadrons, to attack an airfield near Brussels. Two of the 142 aircraft failed to return. One, flown by P/O Matthew Kirdy, disappeared without trace and his name, along with those of his observer Sgt Norman Longcluse and wireless operator Sgt Bob Hettle, are now recorded on the Runnymede Memorial to those who have no known graves. They were the first men from 1 Group to die in action. The crew of the second Battle survived to become prisoners but two years later the pilot, F/Lt Robert Edwards, was shot while attempting to escape from a camp in Poland and is now buried in the Poznan War Cemetery. 12 Squadron’s first loss came two nights later when a Battle returning from an abortive attack on the Channel ports was shot down by RAF Spitfires over The Wash. The bodies of the crew, F/O Brian Moss and Sgts Brian Conway and Tom Radley, were recovered from the sea and are now buried in St Mary’s churchyard at Binbrook, the first of many war graves there.

  As July slipped into August the threat of invasion grew. Aerial reconnaissance showed increasing number of improvised landing barges being assembled in North Sea and Channel ports and the meagre bomber force at the RAF’s disposal directed its energies against these targets,

  In mid-August 12 and 142 Squadrons left Binbrook briefly to operate from Eastchurch in Kent where it shared what was to become one of the front-line Battle of Britain airfields with 266 Squadron’s Spitfires. They were to remain there for three weeks during which time both squadrons mounted night attacks on the Channel ports which, by now, were only a short flight away, 142 Squadron losing two Battles in one night at a cost of three lives.

  By the second week of September, with the Battle of Britain at its height, they were back at Binbrook where big changes would soon be afoot for both squadrons. The days of the Fairey Battle as a front-line aircraft were drawing to a close, and it couldn’t come a moment too soon for those with the unenviable task of flying them.

  Over at Newton 103 Squadron lost three of the five aircraft sent out on a night attack on Calais. Two of the crews were later reported to be PoWs while no trace was ever found of Sgt Fred Cooper’s aircraft.

  On October 1 both 103 and 150 Squadrons were told they were to convert to twin-engined Wellingtons and the following day the first of their new charges arrived. Each squadron was instructed to withdraw two Battles for each Wellington it received and within 10 days the last of the airworthy Battles had left. More men had been drafted in and would fly as second pilots and air-gunners in the six-man Wellington crews.

  During the final months of the Battle’s operational life two further squadrons joined the strength of 1 Group, 300 (Masovian) and 301 (Pomeranian), the first Polish bomber squadrons to operate within Bomber Command. They were soon joined by two further squadrons, 304 (Silesian) and 305 (Wielkopolska), and all were to serve with distinction, 300 remaining an integral part of 1 Group until the end of the war. 304 and 305 were largely made up of Poles who had joined the French Air Force after escaping from their homeland.

  Polish airmen had begun arriving in considerable numbers in Britain in the winter of 1939/40 and they were joined that summer by very many more following the fall of France. Many had amazing stories to tell of escape from either the Germans or the Russians, long treks across Southern Europe and hazardous sea journeys, some initially to France where they served briefly with the French Air Force before escaping a second time to England. They were skilled airmen with a burning desire to fight the
Germans and were just what an initially dubious RAF needed. They served with great distinction with Fighter Command and it was a Polish squadron, 303, which was amongst the most successful in the Battle of Britain. But many more were destined for bombers and it is interesting to note that in the pre-war Anglo-Polish treaty, which led Britain into the war in the first place, provision had been made for the creation of two Polish bomber squadrons under the command of the RAF.

  Most of the early arrivals spent some time at Eastchurch where they were assessed before moving on either for further training on fighters or bombers. The pre-war agreement had envisaged the two Polish squadrons being equipped with Bomber Command’s most up-to-date aircraft, the Vickers Wellington, but there simply were not enough to go around and, much to the Poles’ dismay, they were told they would initially be equipped with the Battle. The station CO at Eastchurch, G/Capt A.P. Davison, a former military attaché at the British embassy in Warsaw, reported rather disingenuously in a memo: ‘The Pole is an individualist and an aircraft like a Wellington, with a crew of six, is really not suited to their temperament.’ How wrong he was proved to be, the Polish squadrons operating the Wellington with distinction and one of their number being the last to fly it in Bomber Command.

  The graves of the first three casualties from Binbrook, F/O Brian Moss, Sgt Brian Conway and Sgt Tom Radley, shot down in their Fairey Battle by RAF Spitfires on August 1, 1940. Theirs were the first of many wartime graves in St Mary’s churchyard at Binbrook. (Author)

  A formal agreement for the setting up of Polish bomber squadrons was signed in June 1940 with the Polish government-in-exile footing the bill via a loan from the British government. Polish airmen would wear RAF uniforms with a ‘Poland’ flash on their sleeves and would be subordinate to British station commanders and to King’s Regulations. Their aircraft would be in RAF colours but with a red and white chequer on the fuselage and the Polish Air Force flag would fly at their airfields, albeit below the RAF standard.