THE WAR TO END ALL WARS... A50060 1:76 THE WESTERN FRONT It's now more than 90 years since the end of "the war to end all wars". For much of the four years of this grim conflict the soldiers from both sides slugged out a muddy war of attrition in water and rat filled trenches. The diaorama base here is a model replica of a typical trench layout found on the Western Front. The stalemate was eventually broken by not only the courage of these soldiers, but also by the use of the new mechanised weapon - the tank.
A01078 1:72 ALBATROS DVa Three quarters of the German Ace, Manfred Von Richthofen's (The Red Baron) victories were scored whilst flying the very succesful Albatros.
A01080 1:72 BRISTOL F.2B FIGHTER It was soon realised that this "reconnaisance" aircraft type was fast and manoeuvrable enough to be flown in combat more or less like a single-seat fighter; being a formidable opponent for any German single-seater.
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It is a constant surprise to me how our understanding of the past often changes with time and nothing could exemplify this more starkly than the German occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War. With so many individuals from that difficult period in the Islands’ history still alive and so much research having been undertaken we could be forgiven for believing that nothing new could be learnt. The so-called “Model Occupation” is gradually being seen in a far different light. As actor John Nettles makes clear in his interview with John Grehan (see page 16), the occupation was often one of fear and brutality. Indeed, this is one of the very reasons why John Nettles set out to produce his latest history of the occupation. That such an environment did exist is confirmed in the recently re-discovered papers of Frank Falla. This bundle of documents details some of the resistance efforts made by the people of Guernsey and how those caught acting against the Germans were treated – see the Briefing Room on page 6. With this is mind it might pay us to regard what we may learn about the past with a little circumspection. We may think we know a particular subject extremely well and yet a previously uncovered piece of information might surface that will entirely alter our perception of that topic. It is exactly such serendipitous discoveries that make researching military history so exciting. Martin Mace Editor
COVER STORY:
BRITAIN’S LAST BOMBER
In its heyday, the Blackburn Buccaneer – the career of which is examined by Geoff Simpson on page 77 – was the world’s most advanced low-level, high-speed strike aircraft. The type is remembered as a purposeful-looking, rock-steady aircraft offering a formidable strike weapons platform. This painting, by Philip E. West and entitled Buccaneer Strike Force shows Fleet Air Arm Buccaneers operating from HMS Ark Royal. For more information on the Primary Edition, Artist Proofs, or Remarques, visit: www.swafineart.com
Whilst every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders, the sources of some pictures that may be used are varied and, in many cases, obscure. The publishers will be glad to make good in future editions any error or omissions brought to their attention. The publication of any quotes or illustrations on which clearance has not been given is unintentional.
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www.britain-at-war-magazine.com (Front cover: *WHSHS Epos figures, September 2010)
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CONTENTS ISSUE 45
JANUARY 2011
THE HUNT FOR L48
Editor’s Choice:
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Features 27
INVESTIGATION REQUIRED The choice was stark but clear. Should they remain at home and face the prospect of life under Nazi rule after the Germans had invaded Britain, or risk an ocean passage where the U-boats prowled the waters in search of prey? The families of 100 children chose to send their loved ones across the Atlantic to Canada believing that they would be saved from the horrors of war. But, as John Grehan reveals, the sailing of the SS City of Benares ended in disaster.
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GERMAN HEAVY BOMBERS OVER BRITAIN See Main Picture above.
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THE AIRFIELDS THAT NEVER WERE With the pressing need to expand the UK’s air defences, the Air Ministry’s Aerodromes Board had reported on nearly 4,000 possible airfield sites around the country by September 1939. But of these, less than 20% were actually constructed, though, as we shall see, quite a few reached the planning and land acquisition stages before they were dropped. David Smith investigates how so many farms, homes, and landscapes had a narrow escape.
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THE SILENT SIEGE When Allied troops invaded Normandy in June 1944, the decision was made to by-pass Jersey and the other Channel Islands. This meant that the islands remained in German hands until the end of the war. It also meant that the usual food supplies sent from France by the Germans ceased – and both the population and the German garrison slowly began to starve. John Grehan and Martin Mace examine this desperate period in the islands’ wartime history.
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BAD LUCK COMES IN THREES Being shot down will always be an occupational hazard for
BAD DAY AT BULLECOURT The tanks would make all the difference. The Fifth Army’s assault upon the Bullecourt section of the Hindenburg Line would be preceded by a company of tanks which would beat down the German wire and make a pathway for the infantry. But, as Paul Kendall recounts, only two of these new machines of war would survive the day.
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GERMAN HEAVY BOMBERS OVER BRITAIN: DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR THE LUFTWAFFE FAILED TO DEPLOY AN EFFECTIVE LONG-RANGE HEAVY BOMBER FLEET TO RIVAL THOSE OF THE RAF OR THE USAAF. BUT IT WAS NOT FOR THE WANT OF TRYING. THREE MONTHS AFTER THE OUTBREAK OF WAR THE PROTOTYPE OF THE FOUR-MOTOR BOMBER INTENDED TO EQUIP THE GERMAN HEAVY BOMBER ARM, THE HEINKEL HE 177, BEGAN FLIGHT TESTING. DR ALFRED PRICE INVESTIGATES THE DEPLOYMENT OF THIS AIRCRAFT OVER THE UNITED KINGDOM.
aircrew in wartime. For the vast majority who were forced by circumstances to bale out and take to their parachute, just once was enough. However, during the Second World War one Spitfire pilot had the misfortune to suffer such a fate on not one, but three occasions! Chris Goss investigates the incidents that befell Clive Hilken.
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THE BLACBURN BUCCANEER – BRITAIN’S LAST BOMBER Geoff Simpson looks at the career of the Blackburn Buccaneer, an outstanding and lamented jet that gave great service to the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
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A GEORGE CROSS MYSTERY Flying Officer Anthony Tollemache was recognised for his gallantry when he risked his life trying to save a passenger when his aircraft crashed whilst on an exercise in 1940. Sadly his medals were stolen in 1988, seemingly gone forever. Then, seventeen years later, a passer-by noticed something glistening in the sand on a beach 10,000 miles away.
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NEWS FEATURE Four Victoria Crosses sold at auction. Based in Bloomsbury in the heart of London, Spink’s sales room was the scene of their latest Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals and Militaria sale.
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FIELDPOST Your letters.
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CHOICE: THE HUNT FOR L48 105 EDITOR’S On 19 January 1915, Great Yarmouth became the first British 87 town to be bombed from the air by a Zeppelin. East Anglia would continue to suffer aerial attacks until the last months of the First World War, though many of the enemy airships were shot down. Robert Mitchell and Julian Evan-Hart relive the final moments of one of these, Zeppelin L48, and relate the efforts of archaeologists to uncover the airship’s buried remains.
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BRIEFING ROOM News, Restorations, Discoveries and Events from around the UK.
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CAMERA AT WAR A low-level attack by two Hawker Typhoons of 609 Squadron on Laon/Athies airfield, 30 August 1943. IMAGE OF WAR 30 March 1941: German merchant ship scuttled. FREE PRIZE DRAW In this month’s free prize draw, one lucky reader will have the opportunity to win a bundle of Pen & Sword military DVDs. Two runners-up will a copy of Tracing Great War Ancestors: Finding Uncle Bill. THE BEST OF EVIDENCE IN CAMERA During the Second World War the Air Ministry produced a weekly (then twice-monthly) publication called Evidence in Camera. Each month we present a selection of the images included. RECONNAISSANCE REPORT A look at some of the new publications and products that are available.
99 DEBRIEF A Piece of History, Dates That Shaped the War and much more! BATTLE OF THE SOMME: IN NUMBERS 114 THE Lasting for five months in 1916, the Battle of the Somme was one of the most bitterly contested and costly offensives of the First World War.
NEWS FEATURE HMS Ark Royal saw the last ever launch of Harrier GR9 aircraft from her decks on 24 November 2010. NEWS FEATURE Following the release of his new documentary which examines the story behind the only part of British soil to be occupied in the Second World War, John Grehan interviewed John Nettles.
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FALLA PAPERS FIND HIGHLIGHTS GUERNSEY RESISTANCE AN archive compiled by Guernsey journalist and Second World War resistance figure Frank Falla has been handed to Dr Gilly Carr of the University of Cambridge and her research team, Dr Paul Sanders and Dr Louise Willmot, writes Geoff Simpson. Frank Falla was one of five men arrested and imprisoned on the continent by the Germans for running the “Guernsey Underground News Service” – often referred to as GUNS. He and two others survived. In the 1960s, when the German Government made a payment to its British counterpart so that people who had been imprisoned and persecuted could be compensated, Falla helped Guernsey people compile statements.
The forms that he sent to the UK Government were never released. After his death the original testimonies and the correspondence surrounding them, amounting to almost 200 pages, were left in a briefcase in a wardrobe in the house of his daughter Sally. They remained there until this year when they were shown to Dr Carr, who believes that they provide new information on how Guernsey people were treated and how they resisted the occupying forces. Now the team is planning to write “the first ever definitive account of protest, defiance and resistance in the Channel Islands during the German occupation of 1940 to 1945”. Dr Carr claimed that the papers were “the single most
important resistance archive ever to emerge from the Channel Islands.” She continued: “Researching resistance in the Channel Islands is still a very difficult and sensitive issue. Not everybody felt that they could afford to defy the Germans at the time and emotions still run deep. As a result, the story of these people has never been analysed in a complete or definitive way. We are the first to try, so to have this archive at our disposal is quite amazing. The testimonies reveal horrific details of the treatment of prisoners. “The discovery is important. First, it gives us an insight into what happened to islanders after they were deported. The story of the horrors they faced was not often told. Second, it will be a boon in making sure that no Channel Islander victim of Nazism has slipped through the net; we must not forget any islander who suffered in this way. Third, this discovery has focused the eyes of the national (and, indeed world) press on the Channel Islands and what happened during the occupation. This is an important part of setting the record straight.” The find has stirred controversy, with one local historian, who declined to be named, pointing to the incentive for those providing testimonies to exaggerate their suffering when compensation was offered and doubting that there was much new in the papers. Another viewpoint was expressed by Michael Paul, editor of The Review of the Guernsey Society, who acknowledged the courage shown but declared, “Perhaps these matters ought to be left alone now”.
ABOVE: The collection of Falla’s papers handed to Dr Gilly Carr. (Courtesy of the University of Cambridge)
Support for Dr Carr came from Gillian Mawson of Manchester University, who is researching the evacuation of Guernsey residents to the north of England in 1940. She commented: “Some may say that this type of material shouldn’t be aired after all this time. However, speaking as a historian, I feel that any new information that shows what happened to Guernsey people during the Second World War is important and needs to be studied – in a very sensitive manner of course. So I fully understand Dr Carr’s excitement at this discovery.”
AIRCREW ASSOCIATION TO LAY UP NATIONAL STANDARD
THE Aircrew Association’s central organisation is to be dissolved after the decision to disband in 2011 has been taken, writes Geoff Simpson. Planning is taking place for a “measured and orderly dissolution”, culminating in a service at the RAF Church, St Clement Danes, in London on 5 May 2011, together with a reception at Australia House. Despite the news, Aircrew Association branches across the world have vowed to carry on. Association secretary Ron Gadd blamed the decision on declining membership numbers and the difficulty of finding fresh people to act as officers. “Most of us have served for at least ten years,” he commented. Membership of the ACA reached a peak of more than 12,000 in the mid 1990s, but is now down to around 4,500. The majority of members served in the Second World War or in the years immediately after.
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However, as many as forty branches could remain active in their own countries or regions. There will still be branches in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. A United Kingdom-based group determined to buck the trend is the Scottish Saltire Branch, covering the country’s central belt and now recruiting in the Dumfries and Galloway area following the demise of a branch there. Scottish Saltire was founded by the late Flight Lieutenant Bill Reid VC and has more than 100 members. It holds monthly lunches in Edinburgh and Glasgow and ladies’ lunches in Edinburgh. The current Chairman is Wing Commander Brian Thornton OBE who flew fast jets in the RAF, including the Meteor, Vampire and Lightning. The ACA Archive Trust will continue, based at the Yorkshire Air Museum, and an appeal is being made for funds to enhance its work in preserving documents and artefacts. The ACA Charitable Fund, set up to provide “first aid financial assistance”, will also be maintained.
JANUARY 2011
CWGC BEGINS PREPARATIONS FOR CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATIONS OF FIRST WORLD WAR THE Commonwealth War Graves Commission has signed a historic Charter of Agreement with the Flemish Government, reports Alexander Nicoll.
NORTH WEALD AIRFIELD BEACON SAVED A piece of pre-war and wartime history from the de Havilland Aircraft Company’s airfield at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, has been saved, writes Chris Richards. The structure, an aerial beacon believed to have been manufactured by Plessey, was first erected at Hatfield Aerodrome in 1935, being positioned on the roof of the clubhouse on the south-east corner of the airfield. With a range of thirty-eight miles, it was used to help pilots and aircrews navigate and land during the hours of darkness by propelling a pencil of light into the air. It is believed that the beacon remained in operation until 1941, when black-out regulations and the introduction of other systems, such as the Pundit or Landmark beacons and the Occult network, led to it to becoming disused.
The agreement sets out proposals for the two parties to work more closely together in the run up to the centennial commemorations of the First World War in Flanders from 2014 to 2018. The proposals are also designed to encourage greater numbers of visitors to the many war cemeteries and memorials, as well as to provide additional interpretation for those visitors. Importantly, the agreement also sets out plans to construct a new Commonwealth War Graves Commission visitor and headstone engraving centre in Flanders. It is intended to build the new centre near the town of Zonnebeke. This represents a hugely significant development for both the Commission and the people of Flanders, with whom the Commission has forged a close friendship which spans over ninety years.
Following the closure of Hatfield airfield in the early 1990s, the beacon faced being scrapped. North Weald Flying Services stepped in and arranged for the structure to be relocated to North Weald, where it has stood for the best part of two decades. Aware that the beacon was in need of restoration, the University of Hertfordshire purchased it for £5,000 and is now paying for remedial work to restore it to its original condition. Alan Crouchman, the director of North Weald Flying Services, said he felt a “tinge of sadness” when the beacon was taken down. However, he added: “One has to recognise that we don’t have the funds to restore it. It is quite fitting that it is going back to Hatfield.” Once restoration work is complete, the beacon will be put on display near the university’s de Havilland campus. (Images courtesy of the University of Hertfordshire)
On the day that the agreement was signed the Commission’s Director General, Alan Pateman-Jones, said: “The Commonwealth War Graves Commission owes a debt of gratitude to the Flemish and Belgian governments and the people who do so much to enable us to honour the memory of those who died. Their vision and efforts have helped make this partnership possible. “The new centre will create a visitor landmark in the heart of the First World War battlefield region of Flanders. It will provide the public with a fascinating insight into the work of the Commission and the importance of this work in remembering the fallen of two world wars.” The centre will also house a purpose-built headstone manufacturing operation which visitors will be able to view in action. The Commission’s main headstone production centre is, and will remain, near Arras in France. But in light of the extensive programme of headstone replacement and repair taking place over the next twenty years, this additional production capacity will be invaluable. It is proposed the new centre will be operational in time for the centennial commemorations of the First World War. (Image courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission/Ieper Tourist Board)
JANUARY 2011
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PASSING OF BATTLE OF BRITAIN VETERANS FLIGHT Lieutenant Albert Edward Gregory, DFC, who has died aged 93, qualified for the Battle of Britain Clasp through his service as a Sergeant Air Gunner on Bristol Blenheims of 219 Squadron. He had been serving with 141 Squadron when it converted to Defiants, but was too tall for the Defiant turret, leading to a posting to 219 writes Geoff Simpson. Albert Gregory was born in Derby, joined the RAFVR in April 1939 and was called up on 1 September that year. A year later 219 began to receive Beaufighters and Gregory retrained as a radio observer. During 1942, with 23 Squadron, he flew in Bostons on intruder sorties over occupied Europe. Later he served with 605 (County of Warwick) Squadron, also on intruder duties and in air sea rescue. Released from the RAF in 1945, Albert Gregory re-joined in 1947 and flew in Liberators of 52 Squadron from Changi, Singapore, in attacks during the Malayan Emergency. Back in the United Kingdom he became a signals instructor and retired from the RAF in 1955. In recent years he had been a regular visitor at functions and ceremonies connected with the Battle of Britain. * Group Captain Byron Leonard Duckenfield, AFC, was also aged 93 at the time of his death. “Ron” Duckenfield flew Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain with 501 (County of Gloucester) Squadron as a Pilot Officer. He had joined the RAF in 1935 as a direct entry u/t pilot and had served with 32 and 74 Squadrons. In May 1940 Ron Duckenfield flew to France in the rear party of 501 Squadron. The Bristol Bombay he was in crashed on landing at Bétheniville east of Reims. A number of personnel were killed and Duckenfield was amongst the injured. He rejoined 501 at Middle Wallop on 23 July. In Men of the Battle of Britain, Kenneth G. Wynn credits him with two enemy aircraft
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destroyed, one damaged and one shared during the Battle. He was posted away on 15 September and after a period as an instructor was awarded the AFC in September 1941. He later commanded 66 Squadron and 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron, taking the latter to the Far East. Duckenfield failed to return from an airfield attack in December 1942 and became a prisoner of the Japanese, being held in Rangoon jail. Despite the ill treatment he received he would decline to express hatred for the Japanese in later life, pointing out the effects of a culture different to Britain’s. Ron Duckenfield retired from the RAF in June 1969 and went to work for Rolls-Royce Aero Engines. For the author Christopher Yeoman he once explained the circumstances of his squadron moves in 1940: “My time with 74 Squadron was only twenty-four days, 11 April to 4 May 1940. This was not a happy time because the CO, Squadron Leader White, took an instant dislike to me. To understand – but not forgive – his attitude, I have to explain the background. “It was Air Ministry policy at that time (it changed later in the war) to post away immediately from his unit any NCO who was granted a commission. So I was torn away from the squadron I had flown with for four years. Now, there was an NCO pilot in 74 Squadron, ‘Polly’ Flinders, who was commissioned on the same date – 1 April – as myself and what happened was this; Flinders was posted from 74 to 32 and I was posted in the other direction, a direct swap. So, this might explain Squadron Leader White’s unreasonable resentment. He had lost an experienced fighter pilot and could not accept that he had gained one equally experienced in return. “To escape this unhappy atmosphere, I had been in 74 Squadron less than two weeks when I responded to a call for volunteers for the Norwegian campaign. Fortunately for me, tragically for those involved, that campaign failed and I was posted instead to 501 Squadron.” ABOVE: Flight Lieutenant Albert Gregory points to his name on the Christopher FoxleyNorris Memorial Wall at Capel-le-Ferne (see below). Among his medals are the DFC and the 1939-45 Star with Battle of Britain Clasp. He is wearing the tie of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association. LEFT: A wartime portrait of Ron Duckenfield. (Courtesy Geoff Simpson)
JANUARY 2011
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CWGC HEADSTONES UNVEILED IN DUBLIN THE Commonwealth War Graves Commission has dedicated a set of standard CWGC headstones which will be erected over the last resting places of forty-three Irish men and women who served with the British armed forces and who had previously lain in unmarked graves, writes James Scannell. Each of the forty-one men and two women had fought in wars and conflicts ranging from the Boer War to the Second World War, and died as the result of illnesses or injury. Following their deaths, they were interred in Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery which is administered by the Glasnevin Trust.
remember Gunner P.J. Geon who served in the Royal Field Artillery. Gunner Geon died on 26 February 1920, as a result of pleurisy, a disease common amongst soldiers gassed during the First World War. “He died on my father’s third birthday,” noted Mrs O’Shea, “and my husband was named after him. I’m delighted to be here today in memory of him”. Twenty-eight-year-old Private Richard Domican, Royal Army Medical Corps, died of pneumonia at a Military Hospital in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, on 17 March 1915, St Patrick’s Day. His body was returned to Ireland and he was buried in an unmarked grave at Glasnevin. Private Domican’s grandnephew, David Domican, was present at the service to witness the dedication of his headstone. “I think it is sad that he has been in an unmarked grave for all these years,” said Mr Domican. “But he is getting the recognition today that he might not have got had he been in a marked grave.” Glasnevin Trust’s historian, Shane MacThomáis, said: “The fact that these service people did not die in direct combat only added poignancy to their story ... it was terribly sad that so many of these people died after their wars ended.” The CWGC funded the headstones in accordance with its policy that every single Commonwealth casualty of the two world wars should be commemorated by name on a headstone or memorial.
The project began last year when the graves of four ex-servicemen had been identified and headstones erected. Many of the casualties who were commemorated in the recent dedication service had been buried in unmarked graves at Glasnevin because they had no living relatives at the time of their death or because their next-of-kin could not afford the cost of a headstone. The earliest death remembered was that of 35-year-old Private Henry J. Flynn who had served with the 2nd Battalion South Lancashire Regiment. Flynn died of septic poisoning at Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary on 12 December 1914, following the amputation of a leg as a result of shell wounds received on the Western Front. The two women casualties were Mrs Anne Connor, WRAF, and Private Kathleen Cartwright, ATS. Mrs Connor died of influenza at Cork Street Hospital on 18 February 1919. At the time she was serving at the RAF’s 23 Training Depot Station (part of 11 (Irish) Group) at Baldonell, which was renamed Casement Aerodrome in 1965. Private Cartwright died of heart failure at Rathdrum in Co. Wicklow on 11 September 1943.
ABOVE: Sir Rob Young, one of the CWGC’s commissioners, laying a wreath on behalf of the Commission. (Courtesy of the CWGC) LEFT: Mary O’Shea and her daughter, Mary Rochford, at the headstone of Gunner P.J. Geon. (Courtesy of the CWGC) BELOW: Eightyfive-year-old veteran Thomas McKenzie from Ballymun, Dublin, who served in the Royal Australian Regiment between 1952 and 1953, pays his respects at Glasnevin Cemetery during the service of dedication. After the ceremony, Mr Mckenzie said: “These people should be recognised for what they did.” (Courtesy Julien Behal/PA Wire)
Mary O’Shea and her daughter, Mary Rochford, were amongst the many relatives who attended the service of dedication. They came to
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JANUARY 2011
HARRIERS LAUNCH FROM HMS ARK ROYAL FOR LAST TIME HMS Ark Royal, the United Kingdom’s flagship, saw the last ever launch of Harrier GR9 aircraft from her decks at 09.00 hours on 24 November 2010. The event took place approximately forty nautical miles off the coast of Newcastle, writes Martin Mace. Joint Force Harrier, the home of the Harriers from 1(F) Squadron RAF and 800 Naval Air Squadron, based at RAF Cottesmore, will decommission as part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review announced recently. As part of the same review, HMS Ark Royal will also decommission. Each squadron embarked two Harrier GR9s whilst the Ark Royal was sailing in the Moray Firth prior to entering Newcastle, the city in which Swan Hunter built the ship; her steel being cut in 1978. Each of the Harriers had their tails repainted with the emblems of the squadron operating it. To demonstrate the inter-service nature of Joint Force Harrier, the last jet to recover in HMS Ark Royal was an 800 Naval Air Squadron Harrier
piloted by an RAF officer. The last jet to launch, meanwhile, was a 1(Fighter) Squadron RAF Harrier flown by a Royal Naval officer. The pilot of that last Harrier to launch from the decks of HMS Ark Royal was Lieutenant Commander James Blackmore. Speaking after the event, he said: “This is a truly memorable day. We accept the decision to decommission both the Harrier and HMS Ark Royal; however, of course the final launch will be emotional. I have flown over ninety sorties off the ship and combat sorties in Afghanistan, and the aircraft’s capability still astounds me. Landing an aircraft on a runway which is not in the same location as where you launched from gives exceptional flexibility. “I feel honoured and proud to be the last pilot to ever launch a Harrier jet from HMS Ark Royal”, he added. Blackmore’s Harrier was the last in a wave of four aircraft participating in the event. After the launch, the four jets conducted a two-ship fly past, each squadron flying low down the port side of the carrier. They then undertook a final fighter exercise controlled by a Sea King Mk.7 helicopter, prior to returning to RAF Cottesmore. Both the Harrier and HMS Ark Royal are due to formally leave service with the Royal Navy in early 2011. HMS Illustrious, presently refitting in Rosyth, will regenerate her helicopter capability alongside HMS Ocean. The Royal Navy’s replacement, HMS Queen Elizabeth, and her sister ship will enter service from 2015. Together with their helicopters and the Joint Strike Fighter, they will operate alongside the new Type 45 destroyers, the forthcoming Type 26 frigate, and the Astute -class submarines.
TOP: A Harrier GR9 of 1(F) Squadron RAF prepares to launch from the deck of HMS Ark Royal on 24 November 2010 – the event marking the last time that the deck of the carrier will handle fast jets. ABOVE: Some of Ark Royal’s crew watch on as a pair of Royal Navy and RAF Harriers undertake a lowlevel flypast. RIGHT: Harrier GR9 ZD467 takes off from HMS Ark Royal. (All images ©UK MOD Crown Copyright 2010)
JANUARY 2011
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PLAQUE COMMEMORATES THE SALVAGE OF THE SMS HINDENBURG GERMAN BATTLE CRUISER WAS THE LARGEST AND LAST OF THE WARSHIPS TO
SINK DURING THE SCUTTLING OF THE GERMAN HIGH SEAS FLEET AT SCAPA FLOW IN 1919 THE last capital ship built by the Germans in the First World War, the SMS Hindenburg was the third and final ship of her class, her sister vessels being the SMS Derfflinger and SMS Lützow. Launched on 1 August 1915, and commissioned later in the war, this battle cruiser had a brief operational career. Under the conditions of the Armistice agreed in 1918, the majority of the German fleet was to be interned at Scapa Flow. On 21 November 1918, the ships to be detained – fourteen capital ships, seven light cruisers, and fifty of the most modern torpedo boats – departed their home waters to rendezvous with the large flotilla of Allied warships that were to escort them north to the Orkney Islands. After some seven months of internment, on the morning of 21 June 1919, the German commander, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, ordered his fleet to be scuttled. The SMS Hindenburg was the last ship to sink, at 17:00 hours. It had been arranged so that the ship would sink on an even keel, thereby allowing her crew to escape. After several unsuccessful attempts, the Hindenburg was raised on 23 July 1930. The salvage operation had been led by Ernest Frank Guelph Cox. Cox was born on 12 March 1883, in Dudley, the eleventh child of his mother Eliza. He finished formal schooling at the age
ABOVE: Jon Moore, the grandson of Ernest Cox, in the Visitors Centre at Lyness on the day of the ceremony. (Courtesy of Jon Moore) RIGHT: This is the battle cruiser Hindenburg pictured late on the afternoon of 21 June 1919. This was the largest (but not the heaviest) warship scuttled at Scapa Flow. She sank slowly on an even keel, and her upper works, seen here, remained a part of the Orkney scenery for some eleven years before she was finally salvaged in 1930. (HMP)
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of fourteen and his father found him a job as an errand boy for a draper. Whilst on his rounds, the young Cox became fascinated by the Commercial Road Power Station in Dudley. There, aged 17, he asked for a job. Two years later he was appointed Chief Engineer at Ryde, Isle of Wight – a role which involved designing and overseeing the building of a new power station. Cox subsequently moved to Hamilton, married the Mayor’s daughter and took over the running of the Overton Forge. By this time, with the approach of war, Cox developed intentions to own his own company. He approached his wife’s cousin who offered him capital, and the Cox and Danks Shipbuilding Co. was formed. After the First World War, Cox was sending non-ferrous metal to Denmark when his customer – a man called Petersen – suggested he should have a look at the German High Seas Fleet, then lying scuttled in Scapa Flow. Having successfully bid to the Admiralty for the rights to salvage most of the German fleet, Cox & Danks subsequently raised thirtyfive warships, often using a number of ground-breaking new techniques invented by Cox himself. At 29,000 tons, and probably the largest ship ever raised in one piece, even to this day, one of the vessels recovered from the seabed was the SMS Hindenburg. The plaque commemorating this event, located by the ferry terminal at Lyness on Hoy, Orkney, was unveiled by Jon Moore, the grandson of Ernest Cox, along with six members of his family spanning three generations.
TOP: The recently-unveiled plaque commemorating the salvage of the SMS Hindenburg. ABOVE LEFT: The SMS Hindenburg’s flag, taken out of deep storage, hung from the rafters of the pump room at the Visitors Centre for the day. (Both images courtesy of Jon Moore)
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A BooK For Heroes ‘CeleBrATiNg 90 YeArs oF NAAFi Serving the ServiceS’ THe sTorY oF A VerY BriTisH iNsTiTuTioN der siT r o Vi To pY o.uk o r C fi.c You w.naa ww 20
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From its inception in 1920, NAAFi has supported the Armed Forces in good times and bad, delivering its famous ‘Char & Wad’, maintaining morale and providing a vital link to home for the brave men and women of The British Army, The royal Navy and The royal Air Force. From simple beginnings to the trials of World War ii, the Falklands, operation desert storm and Afghanistan, NAAFi’s history is littered with tales of bravery, dedication and extreme conditions. including contributions from Air Chief Marshal sir stephen dalton, sir Jock stirrup, david Beckham and dame Kelly Holmes, ‘Celebrating 90 Years of NAAFi Serving the Services’ tells this unique story and celebrates NAAFi’s many heroes, old and new.
“Our Service men and women know that, whatever they are asked to do, NAAFI will be with them.” The prime Minister, david Cameron “There must be very few Service men or women who have not had some cause to be deeply grateful for the existence of this remarkable institution at some point in their careers.” Chief of the defence staff, general sir david richards KCB CBE DSO ADC
“It is difficult to understand a war zone unless you have actually been to one. The one thing you look forward to while you are out there is getting back to the NAAFI and to the good things it provides.” Actor and Award-Winning presenter, ross Kemp “NAAFI and in particular the ‘NAAFI Girls’ have always had a special place within Armed Forces life. Whether it is a cup of NAAFI tea, a chocolate bar or a comforting and reassuring chat, you all do a great job...” Forces sweetheart and TV presenter, lorraine Kelly
Navy, Army and Air Force institutes. The official Trading organisation of HM Forces. A Not for profit Company limited by guarantee. www.naafi.co.uk
“I WAS ON THAT TRAIN”
EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNT OF THE FORTH BRIDGE RAID OF
16 OCTOBER 1939 REVEALED
“I really had no idea at the time of just how serious the situation was but I certainly was not frightened”, recalled Jane. “I remember that my father said that we should all try and get under the seats. I think he was frightened that the train might have been strafed with machine-gun fire as the ‘planes flew overhead”. Jane continued: “I have a very clear memory of a rather portly gentleman … sitting with us in the compartment. He was terribly frightened and tried to push me out from under the seat so that he could squeeze in. “At one point my father lifted me up to see out of the window and I remember clearly my mother shouting at him, ‘Andrew! Andrew! Bring her down’, and my father replying ‘she might as well see it’.” During the attack, twenty-two bombs were dropped beside the bridge – including two 500kg bombs which exploded simultaneously less than 300 yards from the structure. Jane, who now lives in Saline, Fife, said that she really didn’t understand what it was all about at the time but clearly recalls “the explosions rattling the carriage windows, seeing aeroplanes flying over the bridge, flashes and hearing loud bangs”. LEFT: The young Jane Scott with her Mother in Dunfermline, circa 1940. (Courtesy of the Jane Roxburgh Collection) MIDDLE LEFT: Mrs Jane Roxburgh at Dalmeny Station. The Junkers Ju 88s flew very low from left to right over the cantilevers of the Forth Bridge in the background. (Author’s Collection) MIDDLE RIGHT: Standing outside the station building at Dalmeny where passengers were given shelter during the air raid, Jane contemplates the events of some seventy years earlier. (Author’s Collection) BOTTOM: A wartime painting depicting the attack of 16 October 1939, underway. (Author’s Collection)
IN Britain at War Issue 30, under the title “First Blood to the Auxiliaries”, we told the story of the first enemy air attack on the United Kingdom when, on 16 October 1939, twelve Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88s attacked Royal Navy warships lying at anchor just to the east of the Forth Bridge some ten miles from Edinburgh, writes Brian Farish. At the height of the bombing raid a passenger train from Edinburgh to Stirling was allowed to cross the bridge as the bombers flew over. Following a chance encounter, it was discovered that one of the passengers on that train still survives and remembers the incident clearly. On that October Monday morning Mr and Mrs Andrew Scott and their daughter Jane set out from Newcastle where, on the previous Saturday, they had been guests at an Aunt’s wedding. The intention was to travel by train via Edinburgh to Dunfermline Upper or possibly Oakley railway stations and then on to their home in the village of Steelend some six miles west of Dunfermline. Young Jane Scott, now Mrs Jane Roxburgh, recalls the train stopping at Dalmeny Station at the south end of the Forth Bridge with “lots of ‘big’ people milling around beside the train”. The Guard was advising passengers that there “appeared” to be an air raid in progress and that if anyone wanted to take shelter in the station buildings they could do so. At that time the second wave of three Ju 88s was in the act of attacking the ships and hot shell fragments from the exploding antiaircraft shells started to rattle off the roofs of the station buildings. One lady passenger standing on the platform was slightly injured when she was struck by a shell fragment. During a lull in the proceedings and under the impression that perhaps the raid was over, passengers, including the Scott family, rejoined the train which was about to continue its journey over the Forth Bridge. It left Dalmeny at 15.15 hours just as the third wave of Ju 88s turned east over Blackness Castle on the south shore of the Forth and headed towards the bridge.
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CALL TO PRESERVE BRITAIN’S WAR MEMORIALS A call for local and regional councils to do more to help preserve the nation’s war memorials has been made by Frances Moreton, Director of War Memorials Trust. She also wants greater efforts made to record the names of those who died in conflict, writes Geoff Simpson. Launching a national campaign, Ms Moreton stressed the importance of councils appointing members of staff to be responsible for war memorials. She declared: “We hope that having a named contact in each council will improve the ways in which war memorials are protected and help create a strong network to ensure their future preservation across the country.” Ms Moreton acknowledged that councils are not responsible for all memorials, but pointed out that people often turn to councils for advice when a memorial is under threat. Leicestershire County Council’s War Memorials Project Co-ordinator, Liz Blood, backed the call, commenting: “We are offering advice, financial assistance and help in finding specialist contractors to selected projects to serve as examples for others. The depth of local knowledge and warmth of local memory that we are uncovering is astounding ... While many are currently serving in Afghanistan, there is no more crucial time than now to show support for the Armed Forces, and encourage care for war memorials, which are the tangible representation of our history and their memory.” War Memorials Trust is an independent charity established in 1997 to fight neglect and vandalism threatening war memorials. Based in London, it provides advice and administers grants schemes that assist the repair and conservation of war memorials across the UK. The Trust relies on voluntary contributions to maintain its work. Supporters include annual and life members, donors, charitable trusts and corporate contributors. Regional volunteers play a key role in raising awareness of the Trust and discovering threats to memorials. • For more information on the trust, or to see case studies, please visit: www.warmemorials.org
LEFT: There are estimated to be over 100,000 war memorials in Britain – this is an early image of the memorial in Chichester, West Sussex, which was unveiled in 1921. (HMP)
WARTIME TARGET BOAT TAKES TO THE WATER FOR THE LAST TIME REACHING speeds of up to 25mph, the Queen Gull 12½ft Radio Controlled Target Boat CT-78, built in 1943, took to the water for the last time recently at a Classic Motor Boat Association event (seen right) prior to being laid up ashore and loaned to the Classic Motor Boat Museum on the Isle of Wight. The Queen Gull radio-controlled target boats were commissioned by the Coastal Branch of the Royal Artillery in order to train crews of the twin 6-pounder (and occasionally the 12-pounder) batteries in defence of harbour entrances against fast German motor torpedo boats or motor gunboats. The British Power Boat Company designed and developed the boat to a War Office specification. Following the success of trials of the type’s manoeuvrability and unsinkability, which were completed at Hythe, a total of 121 were built at their Marchwood (Southampton) facility between 1940 and 1943. The Queen Gulls became the responsibility of the RASC, though the control and wireless equipment was maintained with the assistance of the REME. Bought as war surplus in 1958 by Dr John Leather for the sum of £125, in the early 1960s this Queen Gull was converted to the layout seen today and used for water-skiing and even racing. Acquired by the present owners Ivan Gardner and Steve Carpenter in 2005, CT-78 was restored to
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full working order and her hull refinished in her military colours. She is expected to remain at the Classic Motor Boat Museum for the next few years. (Image courtesy of Steve Carpenter)
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TELLING IT STRAIGHT FOLLOWING THE RELEASE OF HIS NEW DOCUMENTARY
WHICH EXAMINES THE STORY BEHIND THE ONLY PART OF BRITISH SOIL TO BE OCCUPIED IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR, JOHN GREHAN INTERVIEWED JOHN NETTLES ACTOR John Nettles, aka Bergerac, has had a long association with the Channel Islands. In recent times this has manifested itself in a deep interest in the darkest period of the Islands’ history, that of the German occupation. This interest has developed to the extent that he believed the true story of the occupation needed to be told. As he explained, he wanted to present a frank and honest account of those terrible years. He felt the need, in his own words, “to tell it like it was”. John Nettles had read the books. He knew the publicised accounts of the German occupation but what he discovered when talking to people on the islands was that the official version of events was far from accurate. The outside world had been told that the years 1940 to 1945 were “a model occupation”. In general the Germans behaved correctly and the Islanders accommodated the Germans but only as far as was absolutely necessary.
(PA Wire)
This was the picture painted by the historian Charles Cruickshank in his semi-official book, The German Occupation of the Channel Islands. It was also the view taken by the British authorities after the war. The opinion of many was that what had happened in the Channel Islands was something that should not be examined too closely. In the opinion of others, MI6 should
have conducted a thorough investigation into the activities of the islanders during the occupation with all the consequences that such an exercise might entail. Then along came Madeline Bunting. Her sensationalistic book, The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands Under German Rule, depicted the islanders as mass collaborators and as a result caused widespread outrage. John Nettles increasingly felt that someone had to put the record straight – and this is what he has attempted to do in his new three-part documentary. This film has only been produced now because it is the first time that John has been able to find the time to devote himself to the subject. What John discovered in the process was that the occupation was far from the benign regime that was portrayed by Cruickshank: “I was astonished at the bloody nature of the occupation. Let no-one misunderstand the fear that was constantly in the air. The casual nature of the violence meted out to the islanders was shocking. No-one should be in any doubt that if someone did not do as they were instructed, they would have been shot. Violence was prevalent. Fear was in the air.” It is in this light that people should assess the actions of the islanders. In some instances they did assist the Germans but it was “enforced cooperation” not the willing collaboration that Bunting described. Over the years there has been condemnation of the Bailiffs of Guernsey and Jersey who, it has been said, cooperated too closely with the Germans. Dennis Vibert who famously escaped from Jersey in a small boat and reached Portland [see Issue 21] was the first to condemn the islands’ authorities. There were many others who repeated his accusations at the end of the war. But John Nettle’s research has led him to the conclusion that these men did all they could to mitigate the effects of the occupation upon their people, though this was not necessarily understood or appreciated at the time. To fully demonstrate what life was like on the islands, John concluded his interview by citing the example of Louisa Gould. For a number of months in 1943 she harboured an escaped Russian slave worker in her house. However neighbours of Mrs Gould informed the Germans and she was arrested. She was sent to Ravensbrück and was murdered in the camp’s gas chambers. Her fate, said John, encapsulates the story of the occupation. It is a tale of great heroism, betrayal and bloody brutality – and this is the story portrayed so effectively in the film. • For more information on John Nettles’ The Channel Islands at War, visit: www.channelislandpublishing.com
BELOW: John Nettles on Jersey during the filming of his recently-released documentary. (Courtesy of CKPSTOCK.COM)
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JANUARY 2011
FOUR VICTORIA CROSSES SOLD AT AUCTION BASED IN BLOOMSBURY IN THE HEART OF LONDON,
SPINK’S SALES ROOM WAS THE SCENE OF THEIR LATEST ORDERS, DECORATIONS, CAMPAIGN MEDALS AND MILITARIA SALE. HELD on Thursday, 25 November 2010, the auction included no less than four Victoria Crosses, writes Martin Mace. The fourth lot in this remarkable sale was the Victoria Cross and accompanying medals awarded to Second Lieutenant Donald Simpson Bell during the First World War – the so-called “Footballer’s VC”. Having obtained permission from the directors of Bradford Park Avenue F.C. to be released from his contract, Donald Simpson Bell decided to join up at the outbreak of war in August 1914. Enlisting as a Private in the 9th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment in November 1914, he was reputedly the first professional footballer to join-up following the declaration of war. Rising rapidly through the ranks, in June 1915 Bell was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 9th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment (The Green Howards). He was posted to France with his regiment on 25 November 1915. In a letter to his mother dated 5 January 1916, he recalled the action at the very end of the year: “Missed a lively time on New Year’s Eve, when our Battalion carried out a bombing raid which was highly successful. All our men came back with several slightly wounded. The Germans retaliated by shelling our line and our company had a hot time. Two of our officers were wounded, one slightly but the other very severely. As another officer is going on leave tomorrow we shall be shorthanded for our next trip into the trenches. Fortunately we are in the support which means lying low and nothing else.” He returned to Britain on leave the following summer, during which time he married Miss Rhoda Bonson at Kirkby Stephen, Westmoreland, on 5 June 1916. It was a marriage that was to last just five weeks. On 1 July 1916, the British offensive on the Somme began. Bell’s battalion, part of the 69th Brigade, 23rd Division, soon found itself in the thick of the fighting. At 18:00 hours on 5 July 1916, the 8th and 9th Battalions of the Green Howards were ordered to capture an enemy position known as Horseshoe Trench. This was in a slightly curving position some 1,500 yards long which was located on high ground between La Boisselle and Mametz Wood near the village of Contalmaison. As soon as the men of the 9th Battalion had climbed out of their trenches a German machine-gun position began to cause heavy casualties. On his own initiative, Bell and two of his men, Lance-Corporal H. Colwill and Private J. Batey, made their way up one of the communication trenches toward the gun. Once they were as close as they could get Bell made a dash for it over the open ground. Moving
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with speed and agility he surprised the machine-gun crew, shot the gunner with his revolver and killed the remainder with his Mills bombs. Writing home two days later, Bell described what happened: “When the Battalion went over, I, with my team, crawled up a communication trench and attacked the gun and the trench and I hit the gun first shot from about twenty yards and knocked it over. We then bombed the dugouts and did in about fifty Bosches [sic]. I must confess it was the biggest fluke alive and I did nothing. I only chucked one bomb but it did the trick. The Company Commander says I saved the situation for this gun was doing all the damage. He told me that I was to be recommended so there is a chance of me getting a Military Cross or something … The only thing is I am sore at elbows and knees with crawling over limestone flints etc.” TOP: The Victoria Cross (with the reverse of suspension bar engraved “Temp. 2nd. Lt. D.S. Bell, Late 9th. Bn. York. R.” and reverse of the cross engraved “5. July 1916”), 1914-15 Star, British War and Victory Medals, and bronze Memorial Plaque awarded to Second Lieutenant Donald Simpson Bell during the First World War. ABOVE LEFT: Second Lieutenant D.S. Bell. The shrapnel and bullet-riddled helmet which Bell was wearing when he fell was recovered from the battlefield and can be seen in the Green Howards Regimental Museum at Richmond, North Yorkshire. ABOVE: Donald Bell pictured whilst playing professional football for Bradford Park Avenue F.C. (All images courtesy of Spink unless stated otherwise. For more information on this or future sales, please visit: www.spink.com)
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For Bell, however, it would be a posthumous award. Aged just 25, he was killed five days later “performing a very similar act of bravery”. At 16:30 hours on 10 July 1916, the 8th and 9th Green Howards were ordered to advance from the northern part of Horseshoe Trench, on a 1,000 yard front, some 2,000 yards west of Contalmaison. Moving out steadily in four waves, they were met by extremely fierce German fire. Despite suffering heavy losses, the battalions achieved their objective and soon after Contalmaison itself was entered. But success had come at a high cost. At the 9th Battalion’s roll call that evening only the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel H.G. Holmes, his second in command, five subalterns, and 128 men remained out of a total force of over 570 that had gone into action. Second Lieutenant Bell was among the fallen.
Bell was indeed recommended for an award, but it was not the Military Cross. For his “most conspicuous bravery”, Second Lieutenant Bell was awarded the Victoria Cross. Colwill and Batey both received the Distinguished Conduct Medal. ABOVE: On 9 July 2000, eighty-four years after Bell’s death, this permanent memorial, sponsored by the Professional Footballers’ Association, was unveiled near the spot where he fell – still known locally as Bell’s Redoubt – by the Colonel of the Green Howards, MajorGeneral F.R. Dannatt, C.B.E., M.C. (later General Sir Richard Dannatt, G.C.B., C.B.E., M.C.). It can be seen on the road heading out of Contalmaison towards Mametz. ABOVE RIGHT: The plaque on the memorial at Bell’s Redoubt. Further memorials honouring Second Lieutenant D.S. Bell were also erected in his hometown of Harrogate, and at the schools where he was a boy and master. At the time of his death, tributes were also received from the football community. Mr. T.E. Maley, the Secretary of Bradford Park Avenue F.C., said of him: “A cheery, big chap, he took great interest in his men. As most of them came from football areas he soon found a way to their affection. He has triumphed, and if blameless life and unselfish and willing sacrifice have the virtue attached with which they are credited, Donald is in the possession of eternal happiness, and in his glorious record and great reward there is much to be envied.” RIGHT: Initially buried near where he fell, Bell’s body was later transferred to Gordon Dump Cemetery near La Boisselle. The bronze cross on the memorial, seen here, is a replica of the wooden one originally erected over his grave. (All images courtesy of HMP)
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In writing to Bell’s parents, Lieutenant Colonel Holmes wrote: “He was a great example, given at a time it was most needed, and in his honour, the spot where he lies, and which is now a redoubt, has been officially named ‘Bell’s Redoubt’. He is a great loss to the battalion and also to me personally, and I consider him one of the finest officers I have ever seen.” Brigadier T.S. Lambert, the commander of the 69th Brigade, also made the following comment: “It is given to few to stand out among their comrades as he did, but in leading others his life was not given in vain.” Writing after his death, Bell’s childhood friend Archie White (later Colonel A.C.T. White, VC, MC) said: “Probably no one else on the front could have done what he did. Laden by steel helmet, haversack, revolver, ammunition, and Mills bombs in their pouches, he was yet able to hurl himself at the German trench at such speed that the enemy would hardly believe what their eyes saw. He was a magnificent soldier …” Bell’s medals were purchased by the Professional Footballers’ Association for the sum of £210,000 (£252,000 including buyer’s premium and costs). The association intends to display them at the National Football Museum in Preston, Lancashire.
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ABOVE: The Victoria Cross, Military Medal, and bronze Memorial Plaque awarded or issued to Lance Sergeant Thomas Neely, VC, MM. Lance Sergeant Neely was additionally entitled to a British War and Victory Medal; however, the frame in which the two gallantry awards were displayed for over fifty years in his parents’ home gives no indication of the family ever receiving them. LEFT: Lance Sergeant Thomas Neely, VC, MM. Neely’s Victoria Cross was presented to both of his parents by King George V in a private ceremony in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on 27 February 1920. Neely was buried in Masnières British Cemetery at Marcoing, a village four miles southwest of Cambrai.
The other First World War Victoria Cross in the sale was that awarded to Lance Sergeant Thomas Neely, VC, MM, 8th Battalion King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), for his actions on 27 September 1918.
immediate effect, as the attack at once became feeble at that point, and soon after ceased there.”
At 05:20 hours on the morning of 27 September, the British 3rd Division crossed the dry bed of the Canal du Nord near Flesquières and advanced on the German Hindenburg Line (see Issue 44). Neely’s citation in the London Gazette provides the following account:
Renny, then a Major, was presented with his VC by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle on 9 November 1860. His medals sold for £130,000, once again excluding buyer’s premium and costs. * The fourth Victoria Cross sold by Spink on 25 November 2010, was that awarded to Lieutenant (later Major-General) Robert Montresor Rogers.
“His company was held up during the advance by heavy machine-gun fire from a flank. Corporal Neely, realising the seriousness of the situation, at once, under point-blank fire, dashed out with two men and rushed the positions, disposing of the garrisons and capturing three machine-guns. Subsequently, on two successive occasions, he rushed concrete strong points, killing or capturing the occupants.”
Rogers was serving in the 44th Regiment of Foot when he was part of a force detailed to attack the North Taku Fort on 21 August 1860, during the Second China War. Under heavy fire, Rogers and two others swam across the ditches surrounding the fort. Rogers was the first British soldier into the fort which was defended by 500 fanatical Chinese, though he was severely wounded in the process.
For his gallantry and conspicuous bravery Corporal Neely was immediately promoted in the field to the rank of Lance Sergeant. But he would never learn of the award of the Victoria Cross.
Rogers’ VC and other medals attained the price of £180,000 before costs. This was £30,000 over their top estimate. Both his VC and that
As the fighting continued, on 1 October 1918, the 76th Division came under heavy fire as it attempted to secure an objective at Rumilly. Casualties were high and 21-year-old Lance Sergeant Neely was among the fallen.
BELOW: The Indian Mutiny 1857 group of four medals to Major-General G.A. Renny, Bengal Horse Artillery. As well as the Victoria Cross, there is a Sutlej 1845-46 campaign medal (no clasp), an Indian Mutiny 1857-58 campaign medal (one clasp – Delhi), and the India General Service 1854-95 medal (also one clasp – Northwest Frontier).
Neely’s medals, purchased by a dealer on behalf of a private collector, achieved the lowest price of the four VC sets sold at the auction – £110,000 (excluding buyer’s premium and costs). The lot included the memorial plaque and scroll to Private Raymond Egan, West Riding Regiment, who, killed in action on the Western Front on 2 March 1916, was Neely’s cousin. * The earliest Victoria Cross in the sale was that awarded to Captain (later Major-General) George Alexander Renny of the Bengal Horse Artillery during the Indian Mutiny. On 16 September 1857, Renny was part of a force holding the recently-captured Delhi Magazine in the face of vigorous counterattacks by the enemy. At one point the attackers managed to set fire to a thatched roof, though this was soon extinguished. The London Gazette recorded what happened next: “The roof having been again set on fire, Captain Renny, with great gallantry, mounted the top of the wall of the magazine, and flung several shells with lighted fuzes over into the midst of the enemy, which had an almost
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ABOVE: The Second China War VC, CB group of six to Major-General R.M. Rogers, 44th Foot. Amongst the many related items included in the lot was the recipient’s scrapbook, which contains a large number of newspaper cuttings reporting both his career and death. LEFT: Major-General R. M. Rogers. Rogers died at home in Maidenhead on 5 February 1895, and is buried in the town’s All Saint’s Churchyard.
BATTLE OF B
awarded to Renny were purchased by The Lord Ashcroft Trust.
RITAIN VET ERAN’S MED ALS
The seco nd highe st price consisted ach o premium f 572 lots, was the ieved in the Sp ink and costs) sum of £1 medals aw 85,000 (e ’s sale, which paid for th xc ar Doe – see ded to Wing Com e DSO, DFC & B luding buyer’s mander R a n here in obert Fra r group of nine front of a nci 234 Squad ron Spitfi s Thomas “Bob” Despite th re. e passing th fact that Doe had e exams st ru g g le d to beco necessary the jointme a pilo th to t, b Britain. A ird most successfu gain his wings, h e would b arely member l R A F fighter p of both th ecome became an ilot of th e Caterpill Ace durin e Batt ar g his first week of o and Guinea-Pig cl le of ubs, he perational However, front line D service. In 1941 h oe’s service was n ot e period he was posted to th restricted to the sk e ie co and straff mpleted 1,259 o Far East where in s over Europe. pe ing attack o troops. s made w rational sorties, in ne four-month cluding b ithin sixty omb yards of Allied forw ing By the en ard do shared, an f the war, Doe’s “t ally” stoo d numero d at fourt us other e of “The F een vi nem ew Hurricane ” to achieve such re y aircraft damage ctories, two s. The ide d. He was co gnition flyi ntity of th a pre-auct one ng both S e purchas ion estim pitfires disclosed e r ate of £1 . (Image co 30,000 to of his medals, whic and urtesy of h £160,000 the Andy , has not had Saunders been Colle ction)
Michael Naxton, Lord Ashcroft’s Medals Consultant, stated that the Trust had bid on Major-General Rogers’ medals because “the collection does not have a VC from the China Wars”. Major-General Renny’s set had, meanwhile, been purchased because “it is the only VC set that contains campaign medals for campaigns prior to the institution of the Victoria Cross”. Mr Naxton also confirmed that in due course these two Victoria Crosses will be joining the 212 VCs currently on display in the Imperial War Museum’s new Lord Ashcroft Gallery. Despite the fact that the enthralling “Extraordinary Heroes” exhibition has only just opened to the public, this, the world’s largest gathering of Victoria Crosses, continues to grow. • FOUR days after the Spink sale, a fifth Victoria Cross was sold at auction in Sydney, Australia, by Noble Numismatics. The set of medals belonged to Private Henry Dalziel, 15th (Queensland & Tasmania) Battalion AIF – the VC having been awarded for his actions at Hamel Wood in France in 1918. Offered for sale by Dalziel’s two sons and daughter, his medal group achieved the sum of AU$ 611,625 (approximately £384,000).
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JANUARY 2011
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‘Britain at War’ Magazine, Green Arbor, Rectory Road, Storrington, West Sussex, RH20 4EF.
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LETTER OF THE MONTH
Malaya where it eventually joined up with the infamous Burma railway. We could also see the Alexandra Hospital, still with the huge but, as it later transpired, meaningless red cross on the roof.
GERMAN COMMERCE RAIDERS SIR – The reference to the German raider, or Hilfskreuzer (Auxiliary Cruiser), Thor in the “Dates That Shaped The War” in the December issue highlights an often overlooked aspect of the war at sea between 1939 and 1945. The Kriegsmarine’s force of raiders met with some success in the Second World War – despite the relatively small number of them. In total there were nine ships; a tenth, the Coronel, failed to clear the English Channel, having been the last to sail, and took no active part in the fighting. In fact, she grounded near Dunkirk and was heavily shelled from Dover and seriously damaged by bombing. Despite its size, this small force of raiders captured or sunk nearly 900,000 tons of shipping. The combined value of the cargoes is estimated to have been in the region of £5 billion – this figure is quoted by Gable Thomas in his book Milag. During their three year campaign, the nine German vessels sank or captured ships equal to more than seven per cent of the total tonnage accounted for by U-boats, and in various actions they sank a cruiser, an Armed Merchant Cruiser, and forced other AMCs to break off action.
experienced in equipping and manning ships for long voyages. The most successful raider was the Pinguin. Sailing from the Baltic in May 1940, she sank or captured no less than thirty-two ships (four through the use of mines), amounting to 158,256 tons. However, she was also the first of the raiders to be lost when she was sunk by the County-class cruiser HMS Cornwell in the Indian Ocean on 8 May 1941. By this time the Pinguin had sailed over 59,000 miles, more than twice the circumference of the Earth, in her 357 days at sea. As for the Thor, also known as the Vir and designated Schiff 10, she captured or sank some twenty-two ships totalling 152,639 tons during her two voyages. The Thor was the second-smallest of the raiders (with only the Komet being smaller), and the only one to complete two successful cruises. She was destroyed by fire in Yokohama harbour, Japan, on 30 November 1942, following a series of accidental explosions on the German tanker/supply ship Uckermark, which was moored alongside her. Douglas Bristow. By email.
The raiders’ success was partly due to the availability of motor ships as compared to steamers, but also to the fact that the Germans had learnt vital lessons in the use of such vessels during the First World War. The German naval operations staff, the Seekriegsleitung, or SKL, was also
BELOW: A view of the raider Kormoran at sea. The largest merchant raider operated by Germany during the Second World War, Kormoran sank ten merchant vessels and captured an eleventh during her yearlong career in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. (Courtesy of Deutsches Bundesarchiv)
Most mornings a driver from 25 Company used to pick my father up for work in a gleaming – and I mean GLEAMING – highly polished, deep bronze green Morris Commercial 1-ton truck. This vehicle was the only Army truck on the island to have a full canopy; the remainder were open or simply wire-meshed because of the heat. This truck was covered and immaculate because at the time the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the CWGC) was starting to build Kranji War Cemetery. It was work which began with the hurried and haphazard single and multiple graves scattered about the island. The driver of the truck, who we got to know well, was a National Serviceman known to my smaller brother and I as “Dixie” Dean (who came from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire). When the IWGC located bodies, the remains were put into long steel (ammunition) boxes and covered in black material. The remains were then solemnly taken to the Alexandra Hospital where, presumably, they might be identified to await re-interment at Kranji during the next year or so. Driving the covered truck, it was Dixie’s task to provide the transport. Many of the Commonwealth dead were found to have been hurriedly buried by their comrades in shallow unmarked graves in the existing pre-war Pasir Panjang and Ulu Pandan military cemeteries. These remains were exhumed, separated out and subsequently moved to Kranji. At the same time, newspaper adverts appeared in the local Chinese and Malay newspapers asking that if anyone knew the location of the remains of Commonwealth soldiers, they would be rewarded for the information. Of course, it being just eleven years after the war, the island was full of them. Dixie’s truck was kept very busy.
The author of the Letter of the Month may select a book of their choice (maximum value £25) from the extensive range of titles available at
www.pen-and-sword.co.uk UNCOVERING WARTIME SINGAPORE
parents; my late father was a Company Sergeant Major with 25 Company RASC.
SIR – I was interested to read in the November issue how historians on Singapore are unearthing wartime relics on the island. This brings back memories for me because in 1956 I was a 9-year-old boy living there with my
We lived at Wessex Circle and he worked at Gloucester Barracks on the Ayer Rajah Road. From our house we could see the railway line that went from Singapore northwards into
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I used to walk the few miles to my father’s office at Gloucester Barracks on Saturday after morning school, and from here he would take us home after a bottle of Frazer & Neave lemonade in the mess. On his office window ledge there was always a small pile of odds and ends that had been recovered. I had a short broken bayonet plus a couple of dirty muddy old RASC and other badges brought in by Dixie Dean. In the 1960s my father told me that he also had a big box of Army-type artefacts, including wrist watches, pistols, equipment and so on in the Company Stores awaiting what he called “sensitive disposal”. I listened to Dixie telling my mum about this task. Being interested in the period, she would then go out with our maid, who had been a
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‘Britain at War’ Magazine, Green Arbor, Rectory Road, Storrington, West Sussex, RH20 4EF. young girl during the occupation, and visit some of the now historic locations. This included Fort Canning which, then, was virtually as it had been in 1942. Closer to home, the Ayer Rajah Road area was among the last of the defended positions before the surrender and our house was subsequently occupied by the invading Japanese. I wish that I had taken more notice of these things then – and listened to my father a bit more. Anyone who visits the serene and peaceful Kranji Cemetery in Singapore should be reminded of how it came about in the mid1950s and of Dixie Dean and his immaculately polished and gleaming Morris 1-ton truck. Peter Laidler. By email.
[email protected]
ANTHOLOGY TO MARK TEN YEARS IN AFGHANISTAN A call for poetry linked to the military operations in Afghanistan has come from Ryan Gearing of military bookseller and publisher Tommies Guides. “In November 2011 it will be ten years since British troops entered Afghanistan,” explained Ryan Gearing. “I want to produce an anthology of the poetry written by men and women of all three services involved in securing freedom for the people of Afghanistan, or poetry that has inspired them and their families as they carry out their dangerous duties.” Tommies Guides intends to publish the anthology to commemorate the anniversary and give it the title Enduring Freedom.
Commander David Hill, Chief Executive of Combat Stress, welcoming the plan, said: “For ninety years Combat Stress has led the way in providing vital support to veterans suffering from mental ill health. With the Armed Forces constantly in action, we are being approached by more and more veterans who are seeking our unique help. Since 2005 we have seen a seventy-two per cent increase in new referrals. That’s why we are delighted to back this unusual initiative from Tommies Guides.” Suggestions for poems to be included in the anthology should be sent to: Ryan Gearing, Tommies Guides, Menin House, 13 Hunloke Avenue, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN22 8UL. Email:
[email protected]
For each book sold there will be a donation to the charity Combat Stress. Wing
Kranji War Cemetery today. (Courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
A WAAF’s MILITARY MEDAL SIR – Your article in Issue 40 rang a few bells in the memory box. I was an 8-year-old living on the western edge of Rustington, West Sussex, at the time. From our kitchen window we could look across the open country to Poling radar station, with the three metal transmitter towers and four somewhat shorter wooden receiver towers a little to the east. I clearly remember the afternoon of 18 August 1940. As I watched the raid on the station by the Stuka Ju 87s, the bomb explosions rattled the windows. When I attempted to go outside for a better view of the numerous aircraft flying
around I was hauled back by my mother. A short while later we learned that the naval station at Ford had been badly hit. We had only moved to Rustington two weeks
previously from East Preston and I can remember a ’plane dropping bombs there earlier, but cannot recall the date. One bomb landed in the middle of Somerset Road some hundred yards from us at No.8. A further >>>
SERGEANT JACK BYRNE’S MEDALS SIR – It was interesting to see on page 7 of Issue 43, that the ribbon on the 1939-1945 Star in Jack Byrne’s DCM group (right) has been mounted the wrong way around. It should have three equal stripes of dark blue, red and light blue, symbolising the Royal and Merchant Navies, the Army and the Royal Air Force, in that order. On Sergeant Byrne’s, the ribbon is the other way round. Alan Cooper. By email.
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‘Britain at War’ Magazine, Green Arbor, Rectory Road, Storrington, West Sussex, RH20 4EF. two fell nearby; one of which came to earth close to Roundstone level crossing but failed to explode. That evening some of us youngsters went to have a look at it. From memory, they may have been small bombs – possibly around 50kgs. After moving, I went to Elmgrove primary school in Littlehampton, walking across the fields to get there. One afternoon when I was halfway home, a German bomb fell on the school. A Bofors gun was banging away nearby but it was low cloud and I doubt anyone saw the tip and run raider. We got the following day off school as they were busy sweeping up the glass. I think most of the young lads at that time thought it was all pretty exciting stuff! John King, Perth, Australia THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN CLASP SIR – We have now reached the end of the commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. For those of us who have the honour to wear the 1939-45 Star with Battle of Britain Clasp, 2010 has been a time to remember with sadness and gratitude the friends and comrades that we lost in 1940 and the many who have passed on since.
FLYING OFFICER JOHN REGINALD HARDACRE SIR – Following on from the Camera at War featuring the funeral of Flying Officer John Hardacre, which appeared in Issue 41, readers may be interested to know of the recent Remembrance Day Service at King Edward VI Five Ways School in Birmingham. John Hardacre was a former pupil of Five Ways school from 1927-1931. On 11 November 2010, the present-day school honoured its former Old Boy in a moving service. The Headmaster, Mr David Wheeldon, addressed the school about the importance of remembering those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our present day freedoms, the School Captains narrated the story of the life and death of Flying Officer Hardacre and Squadron Leader Mark Richardson, OC Birmingham University Training Squadron and a recent veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, spoke eloquently about the significance of the Battle of Britain and his admiration for “The Few” who had defended Britain during the dark days of 1940. The school was also privileged to welcome John Hardacre’s nephew, also John, and other
[email protected] members of his family as guests of honour for the day. After the service a memorial plaque was presented to the school. This is part of an ongoing project instigated by the Battle of Britain Historical Society which places commemorative plaques in the former schools of Battle of Britain pilots. John Hardacre was just 24-years-old when he was killed in 1940. It was fitting that seventy years on the young people at Five Ways School were able to pay tribute to their predecessor and receive a permanent reminder of his sacrifice to display in the school. We wish to extend our thanks to the Battle of Britain Historical Society, the Old Edwardians Society, Squadron Leader Richardson, Mr Clive Millman, a former pupil of Five Ways, and all those involved in a memorable day. Richard Wilmot, School Librarian, Five Ways School. BELOW: Squadron Leader Richardson with the Chair of the Governors, the Headmaster, Mr Clive Millman, and the relatives of John Hardacre. (Courtesy of Richard Wilmot)
The year has also been one in which we have been shown great kindness and hospitality by many people and we have been touched to discover the extent to which the nation wishes to commemorate the victory achieved by RAF Fighter Command, supported by millions of men and women in the RAF, the other services and in many civilian roles. Inevitably the coverage given to the Battle of Britain in recent months has stirred debate on the decisions taken at the end of the war on eligibility for the Battle of Britain Clasp, leading, I know, to confusion in some people’s minds. We all have views on what might have been decided in 1945, but the fact is that entitlement to wear the Clasp was, and is, restricted to those who made at least one authorised operational flight with one of seventy-one squadrons and other units under the control of Fighter Command between 10 July and 31 October 1940. An Air Ministry Order in July 1945 stated: “COs are not to admit claims for this highly-prized emblem which are open to any possible doubt. The Clasp is not available for personnel who flew in aircraft other than fighters, notwithstanding that they may have been engaged with the enemy in the air during the qualifying period.” There we have it, for better or worse. I hope that these comments clear up any confusion there may be and, on behalf of all
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members of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association, I offer hearty thanks for all the pleasant and moving tributes that have been paid to “The Few” this year. Wing Commander Bob Foster, DFC, AE, Chairman of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association FREDERICK AND DOROTHY GILL SIR – I read with interest the Image at War in the August Issue regarding the first British civilian casualties of the Second World War.
However, I must correct/add to this article. In the piece it states that Frederick and Dorothy Gill were buried in un-marked graves and also that the only memorial is a brass plaque on a memorial seat. However, whilst they may have initially been buried in unmarked graves, both Frederick and Dorothy Gill are listed on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s roll of civilian war dead. They are both buried in Burrs Road Cemetery in Clacton-on-Sea. Also they have CWGC head stones on their graves. Gary Lillywhite, Gwynedd.
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MAIN PICTURE:
A contemporary wartime illustration depicting the liner the SS City of Benares sinking on the night of 17-18 September 1940. (HMP)
INVESTIGATION REQUIRED The choice was stark but clear. Should they remain at home and face the prospect of life under Nazi rule after the Germans had invaded Britain, run the risk of being killed in the Blitz or risk an ocean passage where the U-boats prowled the waters in search of prey? The families of 100 children chose to send their loved ones across the Atlantic to Canada believing that they would be saved from the horrors of war. But, as John Grehan reveals, the sailing of the SS City of Benares ended in disaster. JANUARY 2011
T
he scheme was known as CORB, the Children’s Overseas Reception Board. A Government-sponsored scheme, its purpose was the evacuation of children between the ages of five and sixteen to private homes in the Dominions. In most cases these children were selected from grant-aided schools from the areas of Britain considered to be the most vulnerable to air attacks and invasion. They would be transported to safe havens away from the fighting in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.1 With the start of the Blitz on London on 7 September 1940, in which more than 1,400 people were killed or wounded, the dangers of the sea journeys which the CORB evacuation involved appeared comparatively minor. Already more than 2,000 children had been sent overseas and though one ship carrying child evacuees had been torpedoed the previous 27
Iceland Greenland
LEFT:
Newfoundland and Labrador
NORTH ATLANTIC
The location of the sinking of the SS City of Benares. The U-48 had sailed from Lorient on her eighth war patrol on 8 September 1940. One of the most successful U-boats of the Second World War, she had already sunk three merchant vessels and one warship, the sloop HMS Dundee, before engaging Convoy OB 213.
Ireland Britain
France
month, all those on board were saved.2 A further 24,000 children had been approved for sailing by this stage of the war. Consequently the 100 children that were selected to sail on the SS City of Benares, outward bound from Liverpool on 13 September 1940 for Canada, thought that they were off to a better life in the New World. Ten of the children were privately-funded and there were also ninety-one adults on board. They believed they were leaving the war behind. The Benares, skippered by Captain Landers Nicholl, formed part of Convoy OB 213 which formed up with ships from Bristol and the Clyde near Rathlin Island off the coast of County Antrim in Northern Ireland. Totalling nineteen vessels, the Benares, being the flagship of Ellerman Lines Ltd, was the largest and best-appointed craft in the convoy and had been chosen as the commodore ship with Rear Admiral (Commodore 2nd Class) Edmund Mackinnon DSO RNR on board as convoy commander. The ships were to remain in convoy until they had passed the Western Approaches and then disperse. This would be a welcome move for the Benares as whilst in convoy it had to travel at the speed of the slowest vessel – some 8.5 knots – whereas on its own it could steam at fifteen knots. At 01.00 hours on 17 September 1940, the Royal Navy escort, in the form of the destroyer HMS Winchelsea and two sloops, left the convoy to escort an inward-bound convoy from Nova Scotia. The outbound
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convoy was scheduled to disperse at midday but for reasons which have never been fully explained, Mackinnon decided to continue in convoy beyond the pre-arranged time. A stiff breeze had made conditions difficult for the convoy and as the day progressed on the 18th the wind increased to Force 6 accompanied by hailstorms and rain. Mackinnon became more concerned at the possibility of the ships colliding with each other in the rough seas than with the threat of enemy submarines and he ordered the convoy to cease zig-zagging. Mackinnon must have considered that in such heavy seas and such poor visibility the chance of an attack by U-boats was highly unlikely. * At around the time that Convoy OB 213 had been scheduled to disperse Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Bleichrodt, commanding the Type VIIB U-boat U-48, had spotted the Allied vessels. As Mackinnon correctly assessed, the conditions were too difficult for Bleichrodt to close in on the ships and be certain of achieving a kill. A submerged attack in a heavy swell was impossible and an attack on the surface hazardous. But Bleichrodt had time on his side.
BELOW LEFT:
One of the rescuers onboard HMS Hurricane – Able Seaman (Torpedo-man) Henry Thomas Herbert Rayner. A veteran of the First World War, Rayner recalled the voyage back to port: “We hunted round about in the vicinity until about 2.00pm on Thursday, 19 September, then we made our course for a home port. The safety lines became full of ladies underwear etc. hanging out to dry. I may mention here that some of the lads worked very hard on the three poor boys that died, using artificial respiration for as long as six hours. One poor woman [was] revived after five hours. Our men worked hard on them all, even to undressing and bathing them … We arrived at Greenock [sic] at 11.00am on Friday, 20 September.” (Courtesy of Cyril Rayner)
BELOW RIGHT:
One of the CORB victims of the sinking of the SS City of Benares. The daughter of Thomas and Emily Myatt of 73 Denecroft Crescent, Hillingdon, Middlesex, Beryl was just nine-years-old when the liner was sunk in September 1940. At the time she was being evacuated to Canada where she was due to stay with her aunt. (IWM HU91770)
develop his attack from ahead on the port bow, a position which would give him an uninterrupted run for his torpedo. Shortly before midnight, Bleichrodt had positioned the submarine for his attack in what were good moon-lit conditions. He then fired torpedoes from two bow tubes, but both missed.
The German submarine followed the convoy, knowing that better weather was in the offing. Then at 18.30 hours the rain stopped and the sun came out. Bleichrodt knew that his moment had come and the most obvious target was the large ship at the head of the convoy. The U-boat commander chose to
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INVESTIGATION REQUIRED
BRITAIN AT WAR
A minute later Bleichrodt fired a third torpedo. It hit the Benares’ No.5 Hold on the port side aft and exploded. Four minutes later U-48 claimed a second victim when the British freighter SS Marina was struck. At that moment a flare was released from the bridge of the Benares ordering the convoy to scatter. The passengers on the Benares looked on in horror as the other ships began to move away. Just when the Benares needed the help of the other ships, she was on her own. * “We were in bed, about ten o’clock at night,” recalled schoolboy Fred Steels. “I was in a bottom bunk with an empty bunk above me. We heard this terrific thump, and the alarm bells started going. What woke me up was not so much the thump, but the top bunk fell on me and I was soaking wet because the explosion had burst all the water pipes and I was getting the lot ... We got out and started heading for the upper deck with these alarm bells going like the very devil. Up there I wouldn’t say there was panic but there was a lot of running around; some of the children were crying.” On the port side, directly above No.5 Hold where the torpedo had struck, many of the girls were thrown out of their bunks. Several were bruised and injured, some seriously. The lighting in the children’s cabins and in
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the passageways leading to them had been extinguished by the explosion. Fifteen-year-old Bess Cummings jumped out of her bunk and with the two other occupants tried to leave her cabin. But, in the darkness, they found that the door was blocked by the doors of a wardrobe hanging across the entrance. Fortunately one of the crew arrived with a hatchet and he smashed a hole through which the girls were able to escape: “Huge gaps were appearing in the decks,” she later recalled. “I was pushed up some very narrow steps on to the boat deck and this crew member said, ‘Go!’ and I was literally picked up and flung into a lifeboat that was being lowered. “There were people waiting to get into lifeboats that never came, there were people jumping on rafts, there were some just jumping straight into the sea – children and adults alike. It wasn’t so much a scene of panic as of confusion and bewilderment.” Such was the degree of confusion that a rumour that the ship might not sink caused people to hang back, and some even climbed back on board. Launching the boats into the sea was made terrifyingly hazardous by the fact that the Benares was still making way. There were reports that in some instances the Lascar
ABOVE LEFT:
A moving, hand-written note from one of the CORB evacuees who initially survived the torpedoing of the Benares only, according to the original wartime caption, to die prior to her rescue. The US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, later described the sinking as “a most dastardly act”. (HMP)
ABOVE:
A group of young girls safely back in Liverpool on 20 September 1940. One of the passengers who drowned in the sinking was 36-year-old Ruby Grierson. She had made a series of short films for the Ministry of Information and was sailing on the liner to make a film about the CORB children for the National Film Board of Canada, which her brother, the legendary British documentary-maker John Grierson, now ran. Another passenger who lost his life was James Baldwin-Webb, the 47-year-old Member of Parliament for the Wrekin, who resided at Olton, Warwickshire. A shield commemorating his death can be seen in the House of Commons Chamber. (HMP)
BELOW:
A group of young boys who survived the sinking. Contemporary wartime captions inform us that the boy looking at the camera with the black hair and dark sweater is Louis Walder. Some of the others in this shot are believed to be Rex Thorne (the eldest), John Baker and Jack Keeley. Thorne, who was the son of Ernest William and Nellie Winifred Thorne, of Pierremont, Derwent Gardens, Wembley, Middlesex, lost a sister in the disaster. Marion Thorne was seven-years-old. (HMP)
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INVESTIGATION REQUIRED
(Indian) crew members, instead of lowering the lifeboats gradually, let them go “one end first and then the other and they [the passengers in the boats] were all pitched into the water”. Another of the boats, descending jerkily, brought terrified screams from the occupants as the boat tipped sideways and fell into the sea. Marjorie Day, sat wedged in a boat about to be lowered, watched the bodies and limbs “falling in a coagulated mass into the maelstrom” in horror. “When we were first in the water,” recalled another survivor, Derek Bech, “we could hear a lot of crying, and screaming of the children because they suffered far more than we did. The torpedo had hit their part of the ship and many had been injured or entombed in their cabins and they couldn’t get out. And those that got onto the lifeboats, well, they were badly launched ... So there was an awful loss of life amongst these children, who didn’t have much of a chance.” Less than thirty minutes after being hit the Benares slid under the waves, all the lights were still glowing as it sank from view, its last moments accompanied by a terrible, lingering groan. Though many of the passengers and crew had managed to find places in the life boats which had been launched successfully, they now faced another ordeal. The Benares had gone down almost in mid-Atlantic, many hundreds of miles from the Irish coast. The nearest Royal Navy ship was almost 300 miles away. One of the lifeboats had overturned when it was launched and two of the schoolgirls had succeeded in climbing on top of the upturned boat along with a number of others. Soon, however, there were only the two girls and two of the Lascar crew left clinging to the hull. The overcrowded boats bobbed and swayed into the rough seas and numbers of people were simply swept or thrown off the boats into the water and never seen again. Though the weather was not unseasonal, it was still 30
BRITAIN AT WAR
bitterly cold so far out to sea. Colin Ryder Richardson, who had been looked after by his nurse, found their roles being reversed as the elderly lady could not stand the cold: “I was so cold, I couldn’t move my arms and legs, and I was holding onto her [his nurse] for my life. But then it became apparent to me that she was dead.” Despite others in the boat telling him to release her, Colin would not let his nurse go. Then a powerful wave solved Colin’s problem as the sea took the nurse away from him.3 The playwright Arthur Wimperis, a passenger on the Benares, had been reading in his cabin when U-48’s torpedo struck. Having found a place in a lifeboat, he later recounted the tragic events that followed: “There was a fair sea running and our boat floated off … This was at 10.30, when my watch stopped. We were
completely awash throughout the night and our great difficulty was to try and hold the children above the water. People died of exposure at intervals all through the night. Among them was the padre in charge of the children. We wrapped the children in blankets, but the blankets got washed away.” Dawn brought little improvement in the conditions. “Then we had our worst time,” continued Wimperis. “As soon as it was light storms of hail and wind got up and the sea became tremendous. We were pretty hard put to it to keep the boat from being capsized, but we managed it somehow.”4 At 22.06 hours an S.O.S. from the Benares was picked up by a shore station at Lyness in Scotland. Twenty-three minutes later it had been passed through to the Commander-inChief Western Approaches who had taken action by altering the nearest warships.
RIGHT:
A photograph of the “missing” lifeboat from the City of Benares having been spotted by one of the Sunderland flying boats on 25 September 1940. During the attack on the liner, the steamer SS Marina was also torpedoed. The crew of HMS Hurricane mistakenly counted one of the lifeboats from this merchant ship for one of the lifeboats from the Benares. As a result, the liner’s Lifeboat No.12 was left alone at sea. Its passengers had three weeks supply of food, but enough water for only one week. In the lifeboat were approximately thirty Lascar crewmen, the director of a Polish shipping company, several sailors, Mary Cornish and a Roman Catholic priest Father Rory O’Sullivan (both of whom had volunteered to act as escorts for the CORB programme), and six evacuee boys. (Courtesy of The National Archives)
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BRITAIN AT WAR These were the escort vessels of the next westbound convoy, OB 214, which was 300 miles astern of the Benares. The senior escorting vessel of the convoy was the H-Class destroyer HMS Hurricane, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Hugh Crofton Simms RN. The report did not reach Simms until 00.10 hours on 18 September, just under two hours after Lyness had picked up the distress signal. The message read: “Proceed with utmost despatch to position 56.43 21.15, where survivors are reported in boats.”5 The destroyer reached the area early in the afternoon of that Wednesday. Three-quarters of an hour later the warship’s crew sighted the first of the lifeboats. “First we picked up a boat with coolies [sic], three women and two kiddies, a boy aged 8 and a girl 12 or 13,” recalled Able Seaman (Torpedoman) Henry Thomas Herbert Rayner onboard HMS Hurricane. “Then several rafts with one or more survivors on, mostly coolies, one raft had two men and a boy aged 12. The men said the boy was a little hero – this is now 5.00 pm and we are still picking up boat loads of men, women and children drenched to the skin, but thank God we are able to help somehow.
the Benares resulting in the huge loss of life, Admiral Sir Martin Dunbar-Nasmith VC, KCB, KCMG, RN, added, “Request Ministry of Shipping be asked to carry out necessary investigation.” * On Sunday 22 September 1940, after the families of those who had died on the Benares had been informed, a statement was released to the press. The next morning the sinking was front-page news. At this point, CORB did not announce the immediate suspension of further sailings of evacuees, nor was there any demand for this from the general public. The News Chronicle, for example, drew a comparison with the experiences of the people at home: “Far more than these eighty-three drowned children have been murdered in the last ten days by the same enemy – and they have been murdered here in London.” “Take a look at the morgues,” was another c o m m e n t . “That’s why we’re sending them away.” The Times’ view was the same: “Heartrending though this criminal disaster is, it does not reflect on the policy of sending children to safety overseas.” In view of the criticisms levelled at the Lascar crew, Geoffrey Shakespeare MP,
FAR LEFT:
HMS Hurricane, in the background, pictured in company with HMS Beagle some time during 1940 or 1941. On 20 September 1940, the Hurricane edged into Gladstone Dock in Liverpool and a padre went aboard to hear the tragic tale of “a cold grey sea and a cold grey mist … kissing little children that their mothers kissed …” These words came from a poem written by the Hurricane’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Hugh Crofton Simms RN, who, affected by the sights he had witnessed, felt compelled to compose this verse whilst at sea on 27 September 1940. (www.warshipimages.com)
LEFT:
Geoffrey Shakespeare MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, pictured talking to young survivors. Shakespeare later issued a statement: “I am full of horror and indignation that any German submarine captain could be found to torpedo a ship over 600 miles from land in a tempestuous sea. The conditions were such that there was little chance for passengers, whether adult or children, to survive. This deed will shock the world ...” (HMP)
BELOW:
The last group of survivors from the SS City of Benares are taken onboard the AcastaClass Fleet Destroyer HMS Anthony on 26 September 1940. The destroyer was guided to the lifeboat by the Sunderlands, whose crews dropped smoke flares to assist the warship. (IWM CH1354)
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, conducted an investigation before sending any more children on ships with Indian crews. He interviewed a number of survivors, including many children.8 Some of the survivors offered no complaints against the Lascars, whilst others even praised their conduct. Shakespeare could not conclude that the boats would have
“Two motor boats were overturned, each having one man on. One had forty children, the other twelve besides grownups – they were all lost when the boats overturned. One boat came alongside with four still alive, the remainder being dead in the water. It was a very pitiful sight to see. A Lieutenant Commander had his wife die in his arms in a boat from exposure. Every one brought on board was exhausted, some of the women had no underclothes or anything – it was really terrible”6 At 23.30 hours that evening Lieutenant Commander Simms, appalled with what he had witnessed and the stories he had been told of how badly the lifeboats had been launched, sent the following signal to the Commander-in-Chief Western Approaches: “Eighteen women and fifteen children, fortysix men, thirty-six Lascars saved from SS Marina and City of Benares ... There are no other survivors alive from City of Benares, all boats from City of Benares were rushed by Lascars and capsized. Investigation required on arrival. Two further children died on board Hurricane. Commodore of convoy and captain missing. Most women and children saved are without husbands, parents or money.”7 In passing on this shocking message to the Admiralty, with its implications of a complete breakdown in crew discipline and order on JANUARY 2011
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INVESTIGATION REQUIRED
BRITAIN AT WAR thirteen out of ninety children. As a consequence the Admiralty ruled that “any further use of ships manned with Lascars for conveying children who are being evacuated under official auspices should be avoided. Pending a decision, no more children will be booked on such ships.”9
been lowered any more effectively by an allBritish crew. Though there were those who found the Lascars’ conduct deplorable, the most damming verdict from the majority of the survivors was that when in the lifeboats, the Lascars made no effort to help in the difficult situation they found themselves in. “They wrapped themselves in the sails, it was said, offered no help to boat crews or comfort to the children, and gave up within a few hours.” The conditions were simply too extreme for the Indians. Nevertheless, these were the views from those boats that had been launched successfully, not those that had been lost. The stark facts remained that 139 out of 316 adults (including crew) were saved but only
The torpedoing of the Benares provoked strong reactions throughout Britain. Home Intelligence reports on 23 September 1940, noted that in the Midlands the sinking had “evoked indignation”, whilst in Bristol there were “bitter demands for reprisals against German civilians”. Despite this, according to the summary of public opinion written the following day, “most people feel that the evacuation of children to the Dominions should proceed”.10 Even with such support, the Admiralty’s announcement effectively ended the CORB scheme. There was, however, one piece of good news to complete the story of the sinking of the Benares. One of the liner’s lifeboats was found by patrolling RAF and RAAF Short Sunderland flying-boats on 25 September 1940. Incredibly, the forty-six adults and children on board had survived no less than eight days afloat in the Atlantic. n
NOTES
1. Canada received the bulk of the children – 1,532 in nine parties. Three parties sailed for Australia, amounting to a total of 577 children; 353 went to South Africa in two parties and 202 to New Zealand, again in two parties. 2. This was the the Dutch liner SS Volendam, which was torpedoed by U-60 on 30 August 1940, whilst part of Convoy OB 205. All but two of the CORB children were returned to their homes and did not sail again. The other two, 10-year-old Michael Brooker and 12-year-old Patricia Allen, were subsequently put aboard the City of Benares. They did not survive their second encounter with a German U-boat (Brian James Crabb, Beyond The Call of Duty, (Shaun Tyas, Donington, 2006), p.30). 3. The quotes used here are taken from Lyn Smith, Young Voices: British Children remember the Second World War (Penguin Books, London 2008), pp.136-152. 4. “We Were Survivors from the Children’s Ship”, War Illustrated, No.57, 4 October 1940, pp.360-361. 5. Ralph Barker, Children of the Benares: A War Crime and its Victims: (Methuen, London, 1987), p.79 6. Account provided to author by Mr Cyril Rayner, October 2010. 7. Barker, Ibid, p.114. 8. A full account of the sinking can be found in The National Archives file reference MT 9/3461. 9. Detailed descriptions of the 2,664 children who were evacuated under the CORB scheme can be found in The National Archives at Kew, in series DO 131. The cards represent a fascinating insight into the lives of these children and the information recorded included their names, dates of birth, details of their parents names, addresses and employment, details of where they were placed on arrival overseas and how they fared health-wise, at school and in employment. The cards also reveal if they returned to the UK after the war or whether they opted to remain in their adopted country. Some withdrew from the scheme and eight unfortunately died whilst in placement. 10. Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang, Listening to Britain (The Bodley Head, London, 2010), pp.445447.
TOP LEFT:
Survivors onboard HMS Hurricane during the journey back to Britain. There were twenty parents who lost more than one child in the disaster. The Grimmond family of 111 Lilford Road, Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, London, suffered particularly badly, losing five children: Augusta (13), Violet (10), Constance (9), Edward (8) and Leonard (5). (HMP)
ABOVE:
32
A group of seemingly cheerful survivors from the Benares pictured on board HMS Anthony as the destroyer arrives at port. These five boys were among the six that had survived on the liner’s Lifeboat No.12. On the far left is 13-year-old Kenneth Sparks, who had been seen by the Sunderland flying-boat crews “signalling” to them with a handkerchief. After his rescue, Sparks said: “The worst of it was rowing all day and night. We ate ship’s biscuits, sardines and tinned salmon and had condensed milk and a little water to drink. I was the first to see the flying-boat. I shouted and then we all prayed. We had to be lifted up the steps of the warship as none of us could walk.” (HMP)
• • • • •
Daily standard tours available within the Ypres salient Bespoke tours Tours to the Somme, Notre Dame de Lorette and Vimy Ridge upon request Guides also available for coach and walking tours on request All prices include entrance to museums used on our routes
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[email protected] CUSTOMER TESTIMONIALS: “We would like to thank you for making our trip to Ieper so memorable and interesting. We could not have had a better guide your depth of knowledge was truly amazing. However knowledge alone is not enough - it was the manner in which you, put it over - quite wonderful.” “We were guided in an exemplary way, with huge knowledge, a lot of information and also a taste of the famous British Humor. Without your guide’s explanations, for sure we wouldn’t have found the places we were interested in and it would have been much more difficult to understand what happened. We can recommend this tour and especially our guide to every visitor of Ieper, also in the hope that more German visitors will come to the battlefields. The information was without any partiality, and we could feel that there was respect for the soldiers of both sides. There was nothing to be made better, in our opinion, it was just perfect and shouldn’t be changed.” Contact:
Genevra Charsley & Jacques Ryckebosch, Boeschepestraat 29, B-8970 Poperinge, Belgium Telephone: 00 32 (0) 57 360 460
During the Second World War the Luftwaffe failed to deploy an effective long-range heavy bomber fleet to rival those of the RAF or the USAAF. But it was not for the want of trying, for the Germans were as aware of the possibilities of a heavy bomber force as any of the belligerent nations. Three months after the outbreak of war the prototype of the four-motor bomber intended to equip the German heavy bomber arm, the Heinkel He 177, began flight testing. Dr Alfred Price investigates the deployment of this aircraft over the United Kingdom. MAIN PICTURE:
By Mark Postlethwaite, this painting depicts He 177s of KG 100 preparing for an operation over Britain during Operation Steinbock, early 1944. In the chronology of maiden flights this German bomber came after the British Short Stirling but before the Handley Page Halifax; after the US B-17 Flying Fortress but before the B-24 Liberator. Yet the Heinkel bomber would become operational long after its Allied competitors – and even then only in comparatively small numbers. For more information on the painting, visit: www.posart.com
I
n 1936 the Heinkel company received details of the latest bomber requirement from the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (German Air Ministry, otherwise known as the RLM). The specification called for an aircraft with a maximum speed of 335 mph which was capable of carrying 4,400lbs of bombs to a target 1,000 miles away (or 2,200lbs a distance of 1,800 miles). At that time this was a formidable set of demands, calling as they did for an aircraft able to outrun any fighter then in service and outperform, by a considerable margin, any such bomber. To meet this difficult requirement Heinkel’s chief designer, Siegfried Guenther, had to employ several new and untried features. Then, while the new bomber was still in the design stage, the Luftwaffe Technical Office
GERMAN HEAVY BOMBERS OVER BRITAIN ordered that the airframe should be stressed to allow the aircraft to perform diving attacks at angles of up to sixty degrees. From the point of view of bombing accuracy this idea had much to commend it. But the harsh G-forces incurred during the pull-out from the dive placed a great strain on the airframe, and the latter had to undergo considerable strengthening. To power the new bomber Guenther would have preferred to use two engines each with an output of 3,000hp, but at that time no German company had such an engine in production. To overcome this problem, Guenther chose to employ two Daimler Benz DB606 coupled engines, each developing 2,700hp for take-off. Each of these coupled engines comprised of two Daimler Benz DB601 twelve-cylinder liquid-cooled motors mounted side-by-side, with a single gear
casing. Each coupled engine drove a single large propeller with a diameter of fourteen feet and ten inches via a gear train and clutch mechanism. Thus, although the aircraft looked like a twin-engine machine, in truth it had four engines. The use of the coupled engines conferred a clean aerodynamic arrangement, with reduced drag. Also, by positioning the engines relatively close to the aircraft’s centre line, this helped give the bomber the degree of manoeuvrability necessary for the dive bombing role. However, those advantages would come at a heavy price. On 19 November 1939, Karl Franke, the chief pilot at the Luftwaffe’s test centre at Rechlin, took the prototype He 177 on its maiden flight. He was airborne for just twelve minutes before overheating engines forced him to
land. Franke would also complain about the design’s poor stability and the tendency of the ailerons to flutter. When the diving trials resumed, the fourth prototype failed to pull out of a dive and crashed into the Baltic; the cause of the accident was put down to a malfunction of the propeller-pitch mechanism. Shortly after that, early in 1941, the fifth prototype suffered a double engine fire while simulating a lowlevel attack. It crashed into the ground and exploded. All in all, the He 177 had got off to an appalling start and the bomber quickly developed an unenviable reputation. Yet by that stage of the war, early in 1942, the Luftwaffe bomber force was heavily committed on the various battle fronts. It urgently needed to bring its new bomber into service.
GERMAN HEAVY BOMBERS OVER BRITAIN
ABOVE:
Engine fires led to the loss of numerous He 177s; many more were lost in accidents than to enemy action. This aircraft was wrecked making an emergency landing. The starboard engine was torn from its mounting and ended up behind the wing trailing edge. (All images courtesy of Dr Alfred Price, unless stated otherwise)
BELOW LEFT:
As the flight test programme got under way it soon became clear that, regardless of the dictates of the Luftwaffe Technical Office, the He 177 was simply too large and too heavy for the dive-bombing role. Despite the extra strengthening of the airframe, it was all too easy to overstress the structure during the pull-out from a dive. With time, the requirement to dive bomb was dropped.
One of the thirty-five He 177 pre-production aircraft shows off its clean lines in flight. This particular machine commenced flight trials in February 1942, but was destroyed a few weeks later after an engine caught fire in flight.
Between March 1942 and June 1943 Heinkel delivered 130 examples of the He 177 A-l, the first production version. But the aircraft was still not ready for operations.
BELOW RIGHT:
Essentially the aircraft was under-powered, which made control difficult when carrying a full load of bombs and fuel. Also, engine cooling remained a major problem. If the engines were run for long periods at high power settings they were liable to overheat. Also, if the throttles were handled without due care the fuel-injectors leaked petrol which created a fire hazard. As a separate problem, the coupled engines had inadequate lubrication. If the system failed, a connecting rod bearing could seize up and smash its way through the crank case to create another fire hazard.
A He 177A-3 in night camouflage. This picture of Heinkel He 177 6N+SK, of I Gruppe of KG 100, is believed to have been taken during the Steinbock attacks on Britain in the early months of 1944. (ww2images)
By now the first of the thirty-five preproduction aircraft started to emerge from the Heinkel works. These were sent to Luftwaffe test establishments to explore the design’s technical features and its performance envelope. However, this only served to highlight the fact that the aircraft was far from ready to enter full-scale production.
36
BRITAIN AT WAR
The He 177A-1 suffered from so many faults that almost the entire first batch was relegated to second-line duties. The next production version, the He 177 A-3, had its fuselage extended by just over five feet, aft of the wing, in an effort to improve stability. Also the engine nacelles were redesigned to reduce the risk of fire and there were numerous other “fixes”. The core problem of insufficient engine power remained. One hundred and seventy He 177 A-3s were built before production was phased-out in favour of the A-5. This new variant appeared in February 1943 and was powered by the more-powerful DB610 coupled engine, comprising a coupled pair of Daimler Benz DB605 engines. The combination developed 2,950 hp at take off, which helped to overcome the lack of power and poor handling of the earlier versions. By the end of 1943 the Heinkel factories had manufactured some 261 A-5s. Whilst the design still had faults, it was, at last, a heavy bomber that could be issued to front line units. * Since the beginning of the war, the He 177 had been earmarked for operations in the
JANUARY 2011
BRITAIN AT WAR
anti-shipping role. In the summer of 1943 2 Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader 40 (II/KG 40) began converting to the new type. On 21 November the bomber underwent its baptism of fire when twenty-five of these aircraft took off to attack a large convoy passing northeast of Cape Finisterre in Spain. Patches of low cloud shielded the ships, and the bombers pressed home attacks on only two vessels. One, the cargo ship Marsa en route from Oran to the UK, was sunk. The second was damaged. In inflicting that meagre blow, II/KG 40 suffered disproportionately heavy losses. Two Heinkels returned early with technical faults and another crashed near its base. One was lost during the attack on the convoy, and another ran out of fuel during the return flight and its crew baled out. One made a wheelsup landing and suffered serious damage; four more returned with varying degrees of battle damage. Five days later, on 26 November 1943, II/ KG 40 struck again. This time twenty-one He 177s took off to attack a convoy located off the coast of Algeria. Shortly after take-off one bomber suffered a broken crankshaft in one engine and was wrecked in the subsequent crash-landing. At the convoy the bomber crews found the concentrated anti-aircraft barrage disconcerting enough, but then came the Allied fighter cover comprising some thirty Spitfires, P-39 Airacobras and Beaufighters. In the engagements that followed, six Heinkels were shot down – including that piloted by Major Rudolf Mons, the Heinkels’
JANUARY 2011
GERMAN HEAVY BOMBERS OVER BRITAIN
commander. In return, II/KG 40 scored at least one hit on the troopship Rohna which caught fire and sank in barely fifteen minutes with a heavy loss of life. On returning to their base at Bordeaux/ Merignac, the heavy bombers found it shrouded by poor weather. Two more He 177s were wrecked in landing accidents, though their crews survived. In total, the two actions cost II/KG 40 twelve He 177s with five more seriously damaged. It was a loss rate perilously close to fifty per cent. Following that blood-letting, II/KG 40 restricted its antishipping activities to the less effective but also less costly night attacks. * In December 1943 Herman Goering ordered senior Luftwaffe commanders to assemble forces for a new series of maximum effort attacks on Great Britain – Operation Steinbock. For the first time the He 177 was to go into action in the strategic bombing role. Two recently-converted units were available, I Gruppe of KG 40 and I Gruppe of KG 100. The two combined had a strength of forty-six aircraft (both A-3 and A-5 variants) of which forty-two were serviceable. To maintain secrecy the He 177s were to change base often, plying between Rheine in Germany and Châteaudun or Rennes in France. Steinbock opened on the night of 21/22 January 1944. It began with two attacks on London with about eight hours between each. The two waves put up a total of 447 sorties of all types. The two He 177 units contributed around a dozen bombers for each wave.
ABOVE LEFT:
A He 177A-3 of II Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader 40, the first unit to employ the aircraft in action. Note the unusual double-leg arrangement of the main wheels; when retracted the inboard legs retracted inboard, and each outboard leg retracted outboard.
ABOVE RIGHT:
He 177s of I/KG 100 pictured during a formation training flight.
BELOW:
Another view of 6N+SK from I Gruppe of KG 100. Note the name Susi painted on the nose under the cockpit.
That night Flying Officer H. Kemp and radar operator Flight Sergeant J. Maidment, in a de Havilland Mosquito of 151 Squadron, brought down the first He 177 to fall on British soil. Kemp was investigating a searchlight cone when his radar operator picked up a target ahead and about two miles away. The night fighter was immediately detected by the German crew, and the bomber pulled into a tight evasive turn. Kemp closed in and opened fire with his four 20mm cannon, observing hits on the bomber’s port wing. The Heinkel then entered a steep dive and crashed near Hindhead in Surrey. Of the crew, from I/KG 40, two were killed and four were taken prisoner. The same unit lost a further He 177 that night, and two more of the heavy bombers were damaged in crash landings. One can gauge the pace of the Steinbock attacks, and the He 177s’ losses, from the rest of that first month of operations. On the night of 29/30 January about 285 aircraft
37
GERMAN HEAVY BOMBERS OVER BRITAIN
attacked London. He 177s from I/KG 40 and I/KG100 took part in the raid. There were no He 177 losses, but two aircraft returned with battle damage. On 3/4 February approximately 240 German aircraft set out for the British capital. The only He 177s that took part were from I/KG 100; one aircraft was damaged. The night of 12/13 February saw 239 aircraft aim for London, including seventeen He 177s and again there were no He 177 losses. Almost the same story was repeated on 18/19 February. As Steinbock continued – the attacks being referred to as the “Baby Blitz” in Britain – two nights later about 200 aircraft set out for London and in this I/KG100 put up some thirty He 177s. One of the latter was shot down by a night fighter. During the rest of February, March, April and May there were eight further raids on London, as well as attacks on Bristol, Hull and Portsmouth, Plymouth, Weymouth, Falmouth and Torquay. The final He 177 attack on the capital took place on the night of 18/19 April 1944. About 125 bombers were involved, including five He 177s. The tactics used by I/KG 100 that night, described below, were representative of those employed by all German bomber types during Steinbock.
Turning point just to east of Newmarket marked by red parachute flares Bombs released in glide altitude about 16,000´
Commence dropping Dueppel
Coast in just north of Orfordness at 17,000´
BRITAIN AT WAR
For this operation I/KG 100 operated from Rheine. Prior to take-off the aircraft earmarked for the operation were lined-up at the end of the runway in a prearranged order. The more experienced crews flew aircraft loaded with two 1,800kg and two 1,000kg bombs. The rest flew He 177s loaded with four 1,000kg bombs. The more heavily-laden bombers were to take off first, because with their lower rate-of-climb they would take longer to reach the attack altitude. Each Heinkel took-off with its tail light switched on. As each aircraft lifted off the ground the pilot switched off the light to signal to the next bomber that the runway was clear. Once airborne, the He 177s headed due west towards the radio beacon at Noordwijk, north-east of The Hague in Holland. There, raiding aircraft of all types funnelled together, aiming to produce a tight bomber “stream” that would swamp the British night fighter and anti-aircraft defences. About twenty-five miles before reaching the Suffolk coast, a crewman in each bomber begun releasing bundles of metal foil (German code-name Dueppel) to confuse the British radars. Twice per minute, at regular intervals, the crewman dropped a further bundle of Dueppel.
On track fix points, 6 flame floats Radio beacon at Noordwijk
The bomber stream crossed the English coast near Orfordness flying at altitudes around 17,000 feet, and continued on its westerly heading. The next turning point, east of Newmarket, had been marked by “pathfinder” aircraft dropping red parachute flares. There the bombers turned southsouth-west and headed for the target – London. On the way the crews made frequent changes in altitude and heading, making it harder for the night fighters and anti-aircraft guns to successfully engage. Despite this interference, a Mosquito night fighter of 410 (Canadian) Squadron shot down a He 177 on its way to the target. On reaching the target area each bomber pilot throttled back, and his aircraft entered a shallow descent to take him to the bomb release-point at about 15,500 feet, marked by red parachute flares. At the same time, each bomber increased its rate of Dueppel release to one bundle every five seconds. After bomb release, each bomber pilot re opened the throttles and established a descent of approximately 600 feet per minute. The He 177s maintained 350mph during their withdrawal phase over Kent passing Dungeness, with constant changes in altitude and heading. The heavy bombers then crossed the French coast near Boulogne at altitudes of around 2,500 feet before returning to Rheine at low altitude.
Rheine
Rotterdam
Düsseldorf
N
London
Steady Cease decent at dropping approximately Dueppel 600´ min
38
Throughout Steinbock, the poor serviceability of the He 177 restricted its effectiveness. The heavy bomber had promised so much, yet in action it delivered so little. One Luftwaffe ABOVE:
Brussels Overhead Boulogne at 2,500´
veteran
A He 177 taking off for a sortie, 1944. (Deutsches Bundesarchiv)
LEFT: 0
Miles
100
Map depicting the flight paths of He 177s of I/KG 100 during the Steinbock raid on London on the night of 18/19 April 1944.
JANUARY 2011
BRITAIN AT WAR
recalled: “Even with all four engines running, a fully loaded ’plane could climb only at a very low rate. It had practically no power in reserve. The airframe incorporated too many compromises, and as a result it never achieved the degree of stability necessary for a good combat aircraft. Even under normal conditions [of flight] it had to be treated very carefully.” On 6 June 1944, the Allies launched their long-awaited invasion of northern France. That evening a force of anti-shipping aircraft, including the He l77s of II/KG 40, took off from their bases in the south of France. Their objective was the huge concentration of ships lying off the lodgement area – but the Allied night fighters were ready to receive them. In the days that followed the Luftwaffe antishipping units threw themselves bravely but ineffectively against the powerful Allied defences. In the ten days following the invasion only five ships were lost to direct air attack. Thereafter the Luftwaffe gave up the idea of such strikes and switched to dropping large numbers of acoustic mines off the coast.
JANUARY 2011
GERMAN HEAVY BOMBERS OVER BRITAIN
Throughout the spring of 1944 further bomber Gruppen converted to the He 177 and were operated by KG 1 on the Eastern Front. During these operations there were relatively few instances of engines overheating and catching fire. By now the various modifications to the type had reduced the risks. Yet as the He 177 was at last becoming available in useful numbers and most of its troubles had been overcome, fate delivered a final knockout blow.
If historians are agreed on one thing regarding the He 177, it is that this aircraft had no influence whatsoever on the course of the Second World War. Over a thousand of these bombers were built, yet it is doubtful whether more than two hundred of them ever went into action. n
During the late spring of 1944 the Allied strategic bomber forces shifted the focus of their attack against the German oil industry. In May 1944, the last full month before the attacks took effect, the industry produced 195,000 tons of aviation fuel. In August 1944, following a devastating run of strikes against oil refineries, the output dropped to a meagre 16,000 tons.
ABOVE RIGHT:
The huge drop in aviation fuel production led to a drastic cut in Luftwaffe operations. Heavy bomber raids came to an immediate halt; the He 177 units were disbanded. Production of the He 177 ceased in August 1944, with the delivery of the 1,094th and last example.
ABOVE LEFT:
A He 177 comes in for a low flypast, January 1944. (Deutsches Bundesarchiv) The rear gun position on a He 177, mounting a hand-held 20mm Mauser cannon. In front of the gunner was an 18mm thick armoured mounting with laminated glass inserts. The cone mounted above the cannon housed the illuminated gun sight for use at night.
BELOW:
An operational study of He 177 Helga awaiting her bomb load prior to a raid. This aircraft has the two lower rows of nose glazing panels painted over – a typical feature of bombers operating at night to prevent the pilot becoming blinded by search lights. (ww2images)
39
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1
BAD DAY
AT BULLECOURT
The tanks would make all the difference. The Fifth Army’s assault upon the Bullecourt section of the Hindenburg Line would be preceded by a company of tanks which would beat down the German wire and make a pathway for the attackers. But, as Paul Kendall recounts, only two of these new machines of war would survive the day.
T
outnumbered, the Allies being able to count in excess of seventy divisions whereas the Germans had no more than forty.
General Erich Ludendorff believed that if the British renewed their offensive in 1917 they would break through the German lines. Ludendorff was also aware that the German forces on the Western Front were now
Ludendorff decided that the only possible way to stop the expected Allied advance was by shortening and strengthening the German line. He selected an area some twenty-five miles to the rear of the existing front line, and throughout the winter of 1916-17 work upon what Ludendorff named the Siegfried Line (which the British called the Hindenburg Line) was pushed ahead at great pace. This shortening of the German front by some twenty-seven miles would release ten divisions which would act as a much-needed reserve for those units in the trenches.
he Somme offensive, which began on 1 July 1916, is generally considered to have been a costly, and in some cases, disastrous failure. Yet the persistence of the British and Commonwealth forces in the face of staggeringly-high casualties had a profound effect upon the Germans.
Harsh weather conditions delayed the work on the Hindenburg Line, particularly in respect of the planned concrete emplacements. As a result, when the German withdrawal to the line began in the last week of February 1917, the defences were
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far from complete. The British forces followed the German retreat cautiously as the enemy employed every device and tactic they could conceive to delay their pursuers. By the beginning of April 1917 the Germans were safely ensconced behind Ludendorff’s Siegfried Line. * With comparatively little delay, Field BELOW:
The fate of one of the British tanks of 11 Company, ‘D’ Battalion, Heavy Branch Machine Gun Corps, commanded by Major W.H.L. Watson, which participated in the Battle of Bullecourt on 11 April 1917. (Courtesy of the Tank Museum: www.tankmuseum.org)
LEFT:
An improvised sign constructed from a piece of painted tin affixed to an iron post that, used during the fighting in April and May 1917, was recovered by the Australian War Records Section at Bullecourt in May 1919. (Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial)
41
BAD DAY AT BULLECOURT BELOW:
WO Ernest Hayward DCM, MM, was a Corporal in one of the two tanks in Lieutenant Hugh Swears’ section that were hit by shell-fire and abandoned on 11 April 1917. He would be awarded the DCM for his part in returning to his tank and recovering it. (Courtesy of Grahame and Lyn Pigney, via the author)
RIGHT:
Second Lieutenant Harold Davies who commanded Tank 799 on 11 April 1917. (Courtesy of Bryan Davies, via the author)
MAIN PICTURE:
A Royal Flying Corps aerial photograph of the virtually obliterated village of Bullecourt taken eleven days after the battle on 22 April 1917. The third objective for the troops during the attack, the village of Hendecourt, can be seen in the distance. The second objective, Riencourt, is out of the picture to the right. (Author)
BRITAIN AT WAR Marshal Haig demanded an assault upon the German line. His plan was to launch a general offensive along the Arras-Vimy front on 9 April 1917. General Horne’s First Army was ordered to capture Vimy Ridge – this would protect the flank of the Third Army as it drove towards Cambrai. Meanwhile the Fifth Army, commanded by Sir Hubert Gough, would break through the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt, thereby allowing British cavalry to sweep through the gap to join up with the Third Army at Arras. Gough planned that the Fifth Army’s attack would be delivered on a 3,500-yard front, with the village of Bullecourt as the primary objective. Bullecourt, which is situated on the Artois plain between Arras and Bapaume, was one of several German-held villages to be heavily fortified and incorporated into the defences of the Hindenburg Line in 1917. Riencourt and Hendecourt to the north and west of Bullecourt would be the respective second and third objectives. Once the Hindenburg Line had been breached the 4th Cavalry Division would swarm through the opening, capturing German artillery and trapping infantry units, before advancing north to Arras. The attack would be accompanied by twelve tanks of 11 Company, ‘D’ Battalion, Heavy Branch Machine Gun Corps commanded by Major W.H.L. Watson. Unfortunately a very heavy snow-storm developed overnight and the tanks could not get to the start line in time for Zero Hour on 10 April 1917. Because of the weather conditions and the non-appearance of the tanks, the commanders of the 4th and 12th Australian Divisions called off the attack at an early stage. Sadly the Australian staff neglected to inform the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division
42
which continued its attack. Losses were heavy amongst the division’s West Yorkshire battalions before news concerning the postponement of the attack reached the 62nd Divisional HQ. Gough, undeterred by the failures, was insistent upon renewing the attack on the 11th. His revised plans for the new attack by the Fifth Army were that the 4th Australian Division would assault a 1,500-yard front between the villages of Bullecourt and Quéant. The 62nd Division would assault Bullecourt and advance towards Hendecourt. No artillery barrage would be provided for the Australians; instead the tanks would cut through the German barbed-wire which was reported to be as much as thirty feet deep. When an entrance had been made through the wire the tank would display a green disc. Major Watson called his tank commanders together just ninety minutes before they were due to move up to their start lines to inform them of the revised plan. The 4th Australian Division would attack Bullecourt alone with the tanks leading the way. “I was desperately anxious that the tanks should prove an overwhelming success,”
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ABOVE: Watson later recorded. “It was impossible not to imagine what might happen to the infantry if the tanks were knocked out early in the battle. Yet I could not help feeling that this day we should make our name.”1 The eleven tanks available to Watson, which were Mk.I and Mk.II types (the latter being training tanks not fitted with armour plating), were deployed in sections. The first section of four tanks under the command of Captain Wyatt would take up the right flank. Wyatt was ordered to approach the German wire and, in Watson’s words, to “parade up and down the German wire immediately to the right of the front attack”. Two tanks from this section would remain by the Hindenburg Line until the German trenches had been captured and consolidated whilst the other two would press on to the second objective. The central section – three tanks under Captain Field – would drive straight at the middle of the enemy line. The capture of the trenches at this point would depend entirely upon the tanks because the approach was across a slight depression, the top of which was completely exposed to German machine-gun fire which the Australian infantry alone would not be able to penetrate. The remaining four tanks, under Lieutenant Hugh Swears, were to carry the left flank of the attack to the east of Bullecourt. Once
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they had reached the first objective, they would continue on to the second objective. * The tanks set off into No Man’s Land at 02.00 hours on the morning of 11 April. They formed up at the rendezvous point, a railway crossing, an hour later. “By this time, the shelling had become severe,” continued Watson. “The crews waited inside their tanks, wondering duly if they would be hit before they started. Already they were dead-tired for they had had little sleep since their long, painful trek the night before.”
This photograph of the Bullecourt battlefield was taken while standing on the track that leads from Riencourt to Noreuil. The railway embankment where the tanks set out from on 11 April 1917, is on the left where the trees now stand. Bullecourt church can be seen in the right of the picture. The tanks and the Australian soldiers would have advanced from left to right across these fields which were covered in snow on the day of the attack. (Author)
At 04.30 hours, Zero Hour, the tanks set off followed by two waves of infantry. The tanks had no suspension and much of the ground was frozen hard. As a result the eight-man crews were tossed around in their confined compartments as they lurched in and out of shell holes and swayed across the rough terrain. The noise inside was deafening and the atmosphere was thick with carbon monoxide and cordite fumes. Coupled with the intense heat from the uncovered engine, conditions were so bad that some men vomited, making the situation even more intolerable.2
BELOW RIGHT:
On the right, two of Wyatt’s tanks, those commanded by Second Lieutenant David Morris and Second Lieutenant Puttock never even reached the German wire. The clutch of Puttock’s tank kept slipping and eventually gave out altogether. The tank was stranded helplessly in No Man’s Land. He had the choice of either remaining in his lightly armoured vehicle or to risk leaving the tank to find shelter in a shell hole. Whilst considering this, the tank was hit by a German shell. The tank was damaged but still drivable.
BELOW LEFT:
German soldiers pose for a photograph by Second Lieutenant Harold Davies’ abandoned Tank 799 on the Bullecourt battlefield. (Author) One of the British tanks disabled during the fighting at Bullecourt. Like the image on page 41, this is a Mk.II Female, probably fitted with Mk.I sponsons. (Courtesy of the Tank Museum)
Puttock managed to overcome the clutch problem and he set off again, only to be “obliterated” by shell-fire south of the railway embankment. Morris’ tank was also hit by German shells but exactly what this tank and its crew achieved is not clear. He later received the Croix de Guerre from the French, the citation for which reads as follows: “This officer, under an extremely heavy and accurate fire entered the German trenches and worked down them for over a thousand yards, destroying the machine-gun emplacements at least. He then reported for further orders. He took his tank into action a second time, carried out his instructions, and finally, with considerable skill, brought his tank out of battle.”3 The remaining two tanks of Wyatt’s section both reached the German trenches. Second Lieutenant Harold Clarkson, in Tank 586,
43
BAD DAY AT BULLECOURT
BRITAIN AT WAR
west of Quéant and then headed for the second line. The account of the tank’s actions, detailed in Volume 4 of the Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, was based on German sources:
reached the first objective ahead of the Australian 16th Battalion. Lance Corporal Bert Knowles was close enough to watch the tank in action: “A tank – the only one which got so far – penetrated the front line of wire, which, by the way, was about four or five yards across and became a hopeless wreck. In passing fairly close to it, I remember a chap standing near the front of it, with a short plank, trying to lever a piece of iron from amongst the big cogs beneath the wheels, and cursing like a bullock whilst the bullets were rattling like hail on the tank itself.”4 Clarkson got his tank moving again, crossed the first objective and advanced towards the second objective. It was as he was approaching the second line of German trenches that he came under direct artillery fire. Clarkson was forced to turn back but his tank was put out of action by shell-fire as it reached the first trench line. The crew abandoned their vehicle. Twenty-four-yearold Clarkson was killed and his body never recovered. Second Lieutenant Harold Davies, in Tank 799, crossed “Balcony” Trench half-a-mile
44
“On the Quéant flank, the advanced posts described a single tank 500 yards from the centre of their front. At a speed of about four miles an hour it approached the entanglements firing. After a short halt it moved along, crossed it easily ... and then enfiladed with its fire our front line. Here for the first time our grenadiers encountered one of these famous monsters ... It would be untrue to attempt to deny that the slowly advancing tank, which there was apparently no means of stopping, had a strong morale effect and succeeded in crippling resistance. But the first fright soon passed.” Moving onto a second trench, Davies came under concentrated artillery and mortar fire. The tank seemed able to sustain this, but it soon became the victim of a smaller-calibre weapon. A German officer, a certain Leutant Schabel of the 3rd Machine Gun Company, 123rd Württemberg Grenadier Regiment, took over a machine-gun some yards ahead of his command post. He fired 1,200 rounds of armour-piercing ammunition at the tank from a distance of just 150 yards. As the tank swung round, three bullets penetrated the petrol tank. This ignited and in the roaring furnace the ammunition store exploded. The crew, who were burnt and some injured, baled out and were captured – as was Tank 799. Davies was killed and, like Clarkson, has no known grave.
LEFT:
Second Lieutenant Cuthbert Birkett commanded one of the tanks that attacked Bullecourt on 11 April 1917. With his crew firing their guns at German machine-gun nests close by the village until all the ammunition was expended, Birkett’s tank was then hit by German shells. Birkett was seriously wounded and his leg was subsequently amputated. (Author)
ABOVE:
The Tank Memorial at Bullecourt. Unveiled in April 2010, the memorial commemorates the British tank crews that took part in the battle for the village in 1917. It stands adjacent to a section of tank track that belonged to Tank 586 commanded by Second Lieutenant Harold Clarkson. (Author)
BELOW:
This is the so-called “Central Road” that runs across the Bullecourt battlefield to the east of the village itself. The photograph was taken looking back towards the Australian lines – marked by the line of trees. During the fighting a tank, possibly Lieutenant Macllwaine’s, was knocked out roughly in the spot where the lone tree is. (Author)
“The tank knocked out by Leutant Schabel was the first tank to be destroyed within the German lines”, noted the Württemberg unit history. “For days it was the objective of officers of all ranks, some of whom had travelled long distances to be able to cast eyes on this amazing creature. Its possession made it possible for the German commanders to obtain exact information concerning its construction, equipment and armament, as well as ways to attack it.” An examination of the tank after the battle found that it had been penetrated by seventy-seven rounds. Such information gleaned from examining Tank 799 was misleading, however, as the Mk.II Tank was
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OPEN EVERY DAY F E B R U A R Y- N O V E M B E R F R O M 1 0 A M WWW.TANGMERE-MUSEUM.ORG.UK TANGMERE, NR CHICHESTER, PO20 2ES • TEL: 01243 790090 SIGNPOSTED FROM THE MAIN A27 ROAD.
BAD DAY AT BULLECOURT
ABOVE:
German soldiers inspect Second Lieutenant Harold Clarkson’s abandoned and badlydamaged Tank 586 from the relative safety of their trenches in the Hindenburg Line. This knocked-out tank was also used as a German dugout, accessed under the front of the hull. (Author)
BELOW LEFT:
Another shot of German soldiers taking the opportunity to pose in front of one of the British tanks captured at Bullecourt. This is Tank 799 that, commanded by Second Lieutenant Harold Davies, succeeded in reaching the German trenches on 11 April 1917, only to become one of the first tanks captured by German forces during the First World War. (Author)
BELOW RIGHT:
A remarkable relic of the tank actions during the Battle of Bullecourt. This is the turret from Tank 799 which was recovered by a local resident, Jean Letaille, close to the position where it was disabled at “Balcony” Trench west of Quéant and south-east of Riencourt. It can be seen today in the Jean & Denise Letaille Bullecourt Museum. (Author)
46
BRITAIN AT WAR
never expected to be used in combat. * Captain Fields’ three tanks, upon which so much rested, achieved even less than those of Wyatt’s section. They were silhouetted against the snow-covered depressions of the landscape and were easy targets. Lieutenant Eric Money’s tank became entangled in the German wire. He tried to extricate himself by moving the tank backwards and forwards but he remained stuck. A shell hit the petrol tank which exploded; all the crew were either burnt to death or killed when they escaped from the machine.
Over to the left of the attack, Lieutenant Hugh Swears’ four tanks were late arriving at the start line. When they eventually moved out across No Man’s Land, two of the tanks were also hit by shell-fire before they reached the German wire. These two tanks were abandoned.
Lieutenant Macllwaine’s tank did not even reach the German wire. It was disabled by a shell which hit one of its tracks. The crew evacuated the tank which was then hit again and destroyed.
Two of his colleagues went with him. The three men got into the tank, which was still being shelled by the enemy, and decided to try and get it working again. To their amazement the engine started up and the three men drove it back to Noreuil. Hayward was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal “for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty” in recovering the tank under continuous artillery fire.
The third tank, commanded by Lieutenant Arthur Bernstein, was hit as it followed Money’s fowards. The shell decapitated the driver and wounded the corporal in the arm. The tank filled up with smoke and the crew baled out.
As the crew of one of these tanks headed back to the British lines on foot, Corporal Ernie Hayward remembered that he had left his primus stove in the cabin of his abandoned tank. Hayward valued his stove so much that he turned back to retrieve it!
Second Lieutenant Cuthbert Birkett’s tank
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ABOVE:
Major W.H.L. Watson’s 11 Company, ‘D’ Battalion, Heavy Branch Machine Gun Corps, suffered fifty-two casualties out of the 103 officers and men who had gone into battle at Bullecourt. Many of these men, such as Second Lieutenant Harold Davies and Second Lieutenant Harold Clarkson, are commemorated on the Arras Memorial. (Courtesy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission)
RIGHT:
The location where the tanks commanded by Lieutenant Bernstein and Lieutenant Money set off. The picture was taken from a spot on the Central Road looking south towards the railway embankment. (Author)
BELOW:
Two German officers with the hulk of Second Lieutenant Harold Clarkson’s Mk.II Female. The serial number “586” is visible on the rear of the tank’s left hand side. It is piece of the track from this tank that was incorporated into the Tank Memorial at Bullecourt. (Courtesy of the Australian War Memorial)
did manage to enter the German line where it worked its way along the trenches towards Bullecourt. Even though the tank was hit twice by German shells and everyone inside was wounded, Birkett pushed on along the trenches dealing with an enemy mortar position along the way. Having achieved his objective, Birkett went back to the railway embankment to seek further orders. His section leader, Swears, had been killed somewhere in No Man’s Land and so he conferred with the 48th Battalion’s CO. Birkett was asked by Lieutenant Colonel
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Leane if he could clear German infantry from a sunken road and eliminate a machine-gun post in Bullencourt. With an “Easily done”, Birkett returned to his tank. He attacked the positions requested by Leane until he ran out of ammunition. Birkett now attempted to return to the Australian lines. He lost his bearings as he neared the railway embankment and climbed out of the tank to assess his position. At that moment the tank was hit by a shell. Birkett’s leg was shattered and the rest of the crew evacuated the burning vehicle. Second Lieutenant Hugh Skinner’s tank, Tank 800, did not arrive at the front until four hours after the battle had begun due to mechanical problems, and had to be towed across the embankment by Lieutenant Morris’ tank. Skinner actually reached Bullecourt, despite coming under heavy machine-gun fire, and, according to the Tank Corps War Diary, “cruised about the village, shooting any Germans visible”. “The enemy fled in disorder. The infantry apparently were unable to keep close to this tank.”5 Skinner and his crew found themselves alone and unsupported in Bullecourt. When he encountered an impassable crater, Skinner tried to reverse but could not engage gear. The tank was now helpless and stranded behind enemy lines unable to move. With the Germans preparing a trench mortar to fire on his motionless tank, Skinner ordered his men to abandon it. The crew succeeded in returning to their lines. Skinner was awarded the Military Cross.
“He penetrated entirely without support into the strong fortified village of Bullecourt,” ran the wording of the citation, “inflicting heavy casualties upon the enemy and, when his tank was disabled, brought back all his crew and valuable parts of his guns and tank under heavy machine-gun and shell-fire.”6 It was reported that Swears had gone to Bullecourt on foot to look for Skinner and his tank. Nothing more was ever seen of him. With the disabling of Skinner’s tank all mechanised support for the attacking troops ended. The Australians did capture part of the German line but when the Germans counterattacked they were unable to hold onto their gains because of a lack of ammunition. * Back at his headquarters, Watson was receiving little news of his tanks – what information he did get was contradictory. Gradually, though, the picture became clear – the tanks had failed to attain their objectives and therefore the attack had failed. Only two tanks made their way back to the start line. The Germans had also captured Tank 799 largely intact. Clarkson’s wrecked female tank was also left inside the German lines. The inquest into the performance of the tanks was damming and the commanding officers of the infantry battalions involved in the attack cast all blame for the failure of the attack on the tanks and their commanders. A report, compiled by Captain Albert Jacka VC of the 14th Australian Battalion, considered the tank cooperation as “useless, or worse than useless”.
47
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BULLECOURT 1917
Breaching The Hindenburg Line
The part that the men and machines of ‘D’ Battalion, Heavy Branch Machine Gun Corps, played in the Battle of Bullecourt was only a small piece of the overall picture.
ABOVE:
A view taken from the Central Road looking north towards Hendecourt. The tree on the right marks roughly where the German trenches ran. It was in the field on the left that Lieutenant Money’s tank became entangled in the German wire. This is also the site where Corporal George Howell, 1st Battalion AIF, fought in the action for he was awarded the Victoria Cross on 6 May 1917. In the left-hand corner are two tall trees – the Australian Cross Memorial stands between them. The German trenches also ran past this location.
His report continued: “The tank crews seemed to know little or nothing of an attack by infantry and nothing whatsoever about the particular operation they were about to participate in ... Further, tank crews did not even know direction of enemy. This is verified by the fact that they opened fire on our troops, thereby causing us many casualties. One tank in particular opened fire on our men at jumping off place, killing four men and wounding others.”7 The truth is that Gough’s plans were flawed. The attack of the previous day had alerted the Germans who were therefore expecting another assault and the decision to go ahead without a preliminary bombardment was clearly a mistake. Gough was certainly
48
under pressure to achieve a breakthrough to support the general Allied offensive but he had placed too much reliance upon the abilities of the tanks. They were still largely experimental machines and in their previous deployment their unreliability had been clearly demonstrated. To expect less than a dozen of them to break through the defences of the Hindenburg Line was completely unrealistic. Even more unrealistic was the expectation that Mk.II training tanks should be sent into battle. Their crews had received little training and few of them had any experience of battle. It would be almost a month before Bullecourt was attacked for a second time. In the intervening period the attack was rehearsed twice, more ammunition was provided for the infantry as well as additional Mills Bombs. More artillery pieces were brought to the front and the practice of the “creeping” barrage, which had first been used on 9 April in the successful capture of Vimy Ridge, was adopted. Ten tanks were available for the attack, but the Australians declined to use them. The attack was of only limited success. n
A remarkably detailed account of the fighting is provided by Paul Kendall in Bullecourt 1917: Breaching the Hindenburg Line. In this book, the author fully examines the fierce battles fought by three British and three Australian divisions in an attempt to aid Allenby’s Third Army break out from Arras. Short biographies of many of the combatants bring their stories of sacrifice and suffering to life, accounts supported by previously unpublished diaries and letters of some of the British and Australian men who fought. There are also more than 300 photographs, including unpublished German images of the Bullecourt battlefield. For more information, or to order a copy, visit: www.thehistorypress.co.uk
NOTES
1. W.H.L. Watson, A Company of Tanks (William Blackwood and Sons, London) p.33. 2. J. Walker, The Blood Tub: General Gough and the Battle of Bullecourt, 1917 (Spellmount, Staplehurst, 2000), p.95. 3. Testimony of Knowles, cited by Paul Kendal, Bullecourt 1917: Breaching the Hindenburg Line (Spellmount, Stroud, 2010) p.91. 4. The Tank Corps Honours and Awards: 1916-1919, Midland Medals, Birmingham 1982. 5. TNA WO 95/97, 1st Brigade Tank Corps Headquarters War Dairy. 6. The London Gazette, 25 May 1917, p.8 7. TNA WO 95/3494, 14th Battalion AIF War Diary.
BELOW:
One of the abandoned British tanks on the battlefield. (Author)
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C OVERING 2,000 YEARS OF B RITISH WARFARE
www.ospreypublishing.com OSPREY PUBLISHING
THE AIRFIELDS THAT NEVER WERE With the pressing need to expand the UK’s air defences, the Air Ministry’s Aerodromes Board had reported on nearly 4,000 possible airfield sites around the country by September 1939. But of these, less than 20% were actually constructed, though, as we shall see, quite a few reached the planning and land acquisition stages before they were dropped. David Smith investigates how so many farms, homes, and fields had a narrow escape.
D
espite the enormous scope of countryside available to the planners it is surprising to learn that some of the airfields which were built for the RAF were extremely poor choices. Most of them date from the mid-1940s when the war situation was so bad that some of the previously laid down standards for gradients and obstructions were disregarded so that an aerodrome might be ready for use within months. Better a poor site available almost immediately than a first class one ready later was the prevailing view. Fairwood Common (now Swansea Airport) was a typical example, being reported as dangerous by some of its commanding
MAIN PICTURE:
officers owing to excessive slopes and changes in gradient. In March 1942 Cheddington in Buckinghamshire was declared to be unsuitable for flying by Operational Training Units and could only be used as a satellite because of adjacent high ground. The same could be said of Wellesbourne Mountford in Warwickshire, although it was destined to remain as a parent OTU station. Another poor choice for the location of an operational airfield was Wombleton in Yorkshire. Opened in 1943, it had been intended to be used as a bomber base but was so close to the North York Moors that a fully-loaded Halifax could not climb out
The fate of so many tracts of the British countryside during the Second World War – and one narrowly missed by others. Here work is pictured underway on the construction of Andrews Field airfield, by the men of the US Army’s 819th Engineer Battalion (Aviation), in 1942. The first of the fourteen Class A bases built by American forces in the UK to be completed, the site was originally to be named Great Saling. (All images courtesy of the author unless stated otherwise)
safely from some runway directions. For this reason it never aspired to become more than a training airfield. Cottam was another Yorkshire airfield whose proximity to high ground proved unacceptable. It was planned and built as a bomber station but no squadrons ever operated from it and it was eventually used as a bomb dump. Some equally unsuitable spots were rejected – locations such as Laugharne, in Carmarthenshire, where the soil was so wet that there was no foundation for buildings. Early in the war it was suggested that because of its generally poor weather and industrial smoke, Usworth near Sunderland should be
THE AIRFIELDS THAT NEVER WERE
abandoned in favour of Woolsington. Instead, the airfield was active until the 1980s with Woolsington eventually being developed as Newcastle Airport. ABOVE:
Work on the construction of RAF Matching (also known as Marching Green) swallows up agricultural land to the east of Harlow in Essex prior to the airfield becoming operational in 1944. Allocated to the USAAF in August 1942, the building work was undertaken during 1943 and early 1944 by the US Army’s 834th and 840th Engineer Battalions (Aviation).
BELOW:
The memorial at the site of RAF Wombleton which is dedicated to those personnel from the RAF and RCAF who lost their lives whilst serving at or from this airfield during the Second World War. (Courtesy of Phil Catterall; www.geograph.org.uk)
BELOW RIGHT:
RAF Templeton, near Haverfordwest, was another anomaly. This Coastal Command airfield, which was operational between December 1942 and July 1945, was constructed in such a manner that a small hill was left in the middle of one of the triangles formed by the three runways. (©2010 Google – Imagery, ©2010 TerraMetrics)
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With the tops of the hangars being hidden from view from the opposite side of the aerodrome due to the lie of the land, West Raynham was considered unsuitable for modern aircraft in 1940. The RAF made do with it, however, and it remained active, with some re-development, until 1975. The airfield construction programme in the United Kingdom reached its peak in 1941/42 when bomber bases for the USAAF were the main priority. Towards the end of 1942 it was found that progress in airfield building was failing to meet the targets set owing to poor weather and shortages of labour, equipment and materials. In Mighty Eighth War Manual, the aviation historian Roger Freeman notes that in December 1942 the Air Ministry, in consultation with the RAF and USAAF, reviewed the question of airfield construction. A decision was taken to postpone all planned airfields where work had not actually started. For some locations, it had been a close-run thing. In August 1942, an area of agricultural land a mile or so north-east of the village of High Roding in Essex was tentatively allocated as an Eighth Air Force bomber station. With the decision confirmed the following month, notices of land requisition were duly served. However, in December
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the same year, in light of the decision previously mentioned, all construction work was indefinitely postponed. The fate of the original occupiers/owners of the land in question is not recorded. An identical situation surrounded land at Ingatestone in Essex – the cancellation of this project was confirmed on 17 December 1942. Beedon, Brightwalton and Hawthorn Hill were part of a string of airfields across Berkshire intended for USAAF transport or observation units. Hawthorn Hill, had it been built, might have made a better site for London’s main airport after the war, being located just to the south-west of Windsor. The observation role was a short-lived one in the USAAF Eighth Air Force and most of the units soon departed to North Africa to join the 12th Air Force. Other plans changed and the transport units failed to materialise, rendering the new airfields unnecessary. Some of these planned airfields, having been given USAAF Station Numbers (High Roding, for example, was USAAF Station 177), persisted in Eighth Air Force directives until the end of hostilities, making Beaumont and Cold Norton a mystery to the uninitiated as only farmland was to be found at these Essex villages.
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THE AIRFIELDS THAT NEVER WERE
RIGHT:
A spot in Yorkshire known as Huggate Wold was one site surveyed and earmarked as a heavy bomber base. However, the plan was dropped in favour of a more suitable alternative at Full Sutton, a few miles to the west. Perhaps because Huggate had already been requisitioned, it was later used for exercises in the laying of steel mesh runways in preparation for the invasion of Europe. (Courtesy of Gordon Hatton; www.geograph.org. uk)
BELOW:
The reality of constructing a new airfield. This is a view of RAF Defford in Worcestershire taken from a Vickers Wellington of 23 OTU flying at 9,000ft on 24 June 1941.
To support its operational units in East Anglia, the USAAF was allocated several aerodromes in Northern Ireland to serve as Combat Crew Replacement Centres, roughly the equivalent of an RAF OTU. However, because the build-up of the Eighth Air Force was very much slower than expected, some of their airfields were taken over for RAF use when ready for occupation. Construction of another airfield at Kells Point in County Tyrone was never begun but the site at Millisle on the Ards Peninsula is a story
in itself. It was well advanced when further work was abandoned. At the time the sum of £58,000 had already been spent – a not inconsiderable amount in those days. The evidence of this venture can be seen on a drive along a country road two miles west of Millisle village. A long ribbon of concrete crosses the road at right angles, part of a runway that was two-thirds completed. About half of another runway was laid, together with a stretch of perimeter track which ends abruptly in the middle of a field. Most of the technical site was built and is now used for light industry. It was fortunate that local farms had not yet been demolished but some of them now sit alongside a motorwaywidth road! Some airfields were obviously in an advanced state of planning when objections were raised by existing RAF stations in the same district, hence this entry in the Operations Record Book for No.7 Group, Bomber Command on 28 April 1942: “Visit to Culworth, proposed site for an OTU parent station near Moreton Pinkney, Northants, with a gentleman from 8 Works
Just a few of the other locations around the country that had been considered as sites for airfields were: Antrim, Northern Ireland: Planned as the location for a bomber OTU but not built, presumably because of agricultural objections. Appleton Wiske, North Yorkshire: Possible RAF bomber base, development overcome by farming interests. Buckden, Cambridgeshire: Possible Eighth Air Force bomber base but not proceeded with owing to agricultural objections. Culworth, Northamptonshire: Proposed site for OTU parent station but too near existing aerodromes so not proceeded with. Grimsthorpe, Lincolnshire: Possible RAF bomber base but too many agricultural objections. Helsby, Cheshire: Required by Fleet Air Arm in 1942 but loss of agricultural land deemed unacceptable. Kayshill, Ayrshire: Intended as a satellite landing ground for Prestwick. Was already under preparation in November 1941 when site abandoned. Ragdale, Leicestershire: Planned as second satellite for Wymeswold but objections from War Department because part of the site was an established range. Shipton Moyne, Gloucestershire: It was proposed to extensively develop the existing Down Farm (23 Satellite Landing Ground) site as a USAAF bomber base, but plans encountered fierce objections from Ministry of Aircraft production and were dropped in November 1942. Strensall, Yorkshire: Possible RAF bomber base but too many agricultural objections and part of an existing bombing range. Witherslack, Westmoreland: Planned site, but abandoned as surrounded by hilly terrain.
LEFT:
Not all airfield construction was permanent. On 7 April 1943, Boeing B-17F 42-29651, nicknamed Stella, was on a ferry flight from Morocco to St Mawgan in Cornwall when it strayed off course over north-west France. Flak damage led to a forced-landing at Lytchett Minster in Dorset. While the B-17 was being repaired, a rough runway was rolled and the aircraft was flown out. It later flew twenty-eight combat missions.
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53
THE AIRFIELDS THAT NEVER WERE
BRITAIN AT WAR LEFT and BELOW:
A 2,500ft runway for one-time use was rolled across fields by an engineer unit near Dawlish, Devon in January 1943. A few days before, Boeing B-17F 41-24606 Werewolf, of the 303rd Bomb Group, had limped back across the Channel with three engines out of action due to flak damage. Despite the fact that nine of the crew baled out over the English South Coast, the pilot, 1st Lieutenant George J. Oxrider, successfully landed the aircraft in this field. The B-17 was duly repaired and flown out on 22 April 1943. Note the camouflage netting covering the bomber in the meantime.
Area. It was decided that subject to alterations to the alignment of one runway, the site was agreed. However, in view of the fact that the aerodrome will be midway between Chipping Warden and Silverstone, recommended that it should be re-sited farther to the north.” There was a serious clash of interest between the requirements of farming and food production and the need for more airfields. The correspondence between the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture, some of which has survived in The National Archives, is long and sometimes acrimonious. The Air Ministry often gave in to valid objections but could be obdurate where operational necessity demanded. The recurring theme was that with a strong air force we could import food but we could obviously never import airfields. Sometimes the army could be the obstacle. A case in question occurred in November 1942 when the Air Ministry wrote to the War Office: “We are having difficulty in obtaining the one aerodrome site we need to complete No.8 (US) Bomber Group. The site which we would like to obtain is at Finedon, Northants. It is excellently suited to the purpose and there are no agricultural objections. The only difficulty is that it impinges slightly on one of your tank training sites. Therefore, if we cannot have Finedon the only alternative is Buckden, to which there are very strong agricultural objections.” However, the army’s prior claim was upheld and Finedon never did materialise. Nor, for
54
that matter, did Buckden. Meanwhile, the Admiralty, which had no definite programme of airfield requirements priot to 1942, now found itself needing more locations for training purposes. It was observed that, as they were rather late on the scene, most of the suitable sites had been taken up by the RAF. As a temporary solution certain aerodromes were handed over to the Navy and lodger facilities were granted at others. In September 1942 the Admiralty commented somewhat acidly that one site on offer, that at Rhyl in North Wales, “appears suitable in every way subject to agreement as to firing ranges. Unlikely the station could be completed before September 1943 at the earliest. It is virtually certain that there are local snags in connection with the construction of the site, otherwise it would never have been offered to us!” The project at Rhyl, along with an adjoining one at Myn-Rhos, also for the Fleet Air Arm, were eventually discarded when it was realised that both were hazardous for night flying because of nearby hills. A possible location for a torpedo, bomber or reconnaissance armament practice station at Abergele in the same Welsh coastal area was suggested in the summer of 1943. Once again the idea was not taken up. As part of the same expansion programme the Admiralty planned a number of airfields in north-west England. Midge Hall, near Leyland
in Lancashire, was, for example, to replace Eglinton in Northern Ireland as a fighter practice station. Cuddington and Grafton Hall in Cheshire would both form preliminary fighter training wings after completion of the armament training centre at Midge Hall, whilst Guilden Sutton near Chester was to be employed for the disembarkation of aircraft from carriers in the Mersey. Unfortunately this neat little scheme was firmly quashed by the Ministry of Agriculture, who objected in the strongest possible terms to the loss of this valuable land at such a late stage in the war. The continued demands for more naval aerodromes were countered by a statement: “The Air Council have consistently done their utmost to make up for the shortage of naval aerodromes. They feel they are bound, however, to record that as responsibility for planning ahead to meet naval needs has not rested with them they are unable to accept any obligation to meet these needs or the sacrifice of any requirement in the RAF programme which they regard as essential.” The Fleet Air Arm was therefore forced to meet its commitments by expanding existing airfields. The Admiralty had encountered the same problem the previous year when a site to which they had turned their attention, at Piercebridge in County Durham, was described as the best square mile of farmland in the country. This phrase, it would seem from surviving records, was a standard ploy used by all farming interests. The fact that this area must have been an ideal airfield site is reinforced by the fact that it had also been requested for the location of an operational base by Bomber Command; it too was disappointed. By mid-1944, further airfield development was considered unnecessary. In East Anglia, for example, after the departure of many USAAF tactical bombers to Continental bases, there was even a small surplus of sites. Many farmers, tenants and landlords were spared the upheaval that had befallen a number of their compatriots in the early years of the war. Others welcomed the end of the war in Europe perhaps unaware just how close the land they worked had come to being lost under an Allied airfield. n
JANUARY 2011
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A TYPHOON “RANGER” ATTACK By the summer of 1943, RAF Fighter Command was well and truly on the offensive. Whilst some squadrons continued to deal with the Luftwaffe‘s “hit-andrun” attacks along the South Coast, others, such as a number of the Hawker Typhoon-equipped units, began to take their war across the Channel, writes Chris Goss. Much of this activity was in support of the Allied strategic bombing campaign. The task was to interdict German fighters whilst also attacking their airfields. As these operations, which included Ranger patrols (missions to engage air and ground targets within a wide but specified area, by day or night), progressed, some of the Typhoons began to carry bombs with which to attack any suitable target that presented itself.
was to destroy as many German aircraft as they could along a route between Laon and Reims. The two Typhoons crossed the French coast north of Le Touquet at a height of 3,000 feet. At this point, the pilots dropped down to an altitude described in their subsequent report as “0ft”. Passing south-east of Peronne, Detal fired a brief burst from his guns at a stationary train and observed a number of strikes. Heading on, Detal and Reahil soon reached the area of ChâteauThierry, a town about fifty-six miles east-northeast of Paris. At this point it could be seen that the weather was clearing to the south and west, so Reahil, who was leading, gave the order for the two Typhoons to turn north. This change in course soon brought them to the Luftwaffe’s Laon-Athies airfield.
2
3
One such Ranger patrol was undertaken by two Typhoon Mk.IBs of 609 (West Riding) Squadron on the afternoon of 30 August 1943. It is aircraft from this squadron that can be seen in Picture (1). It was at 15.05 hours that day that the two ’planes took off from RAF Lympne in Kent. The pilots were Flying Officer Charles Detal, a Belgian, and Flying Officer Frederick “Fred” Reahil, a Canadian. Their intention
56
Originally a civil aerodrome with grass runways, Laon-Athies had been captured by German forces during the fall of France in 1940. Under Luftwaffe control, the site was developed into an important airbase, housing a variety of operational units as well as maintenance and supply depots. No sooner had the airfield been sighted, than the RAF pilots spotted their first target – a Messerschmitt Bf 110 F-4 of 3 Staffel of Nachtjagdgeschwader 4 (3/NJG 4) taxiing along the south-east boundary. Just behind it was a Junkers Ju 52 of Flieger Kompanie/ Luftnachrichten Regiment 3.
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5 4 6
Making an immediate attack, Reahil set the Messerschmitt’s port engine on fire and the German fighter spun round and came to a halt. The crew presumably jumped out, though this was not witnessed by the Typhoon pilots. Reahil then proceeded to fire on the Junkers Ju 52, only to be hit in the tail by 20mm flak – both the Bf 110 and Ju 52 can be seen in Picture (2). Forced to break away, Reahil, who after being hit could only turn his ’plane by using his elevator as a rudder, opened fire on a lorry moving across the airfield as he did so. As his rounds slammed into the vehicle, Reahil could see pieces of debris being blown off it. With Reahil having pulled out of his attack, the way was clear for Detal to make his – he duly proceeded to carry out four passes. Firing at the same two enemy aircraft, these finally exploded and were observed by the RAF pilots burning fiercely and with both fuselages broken in two – as can be seen in Picture (3).
7
aircraft fire followed his Typhoon out to sea. In total, Detal had fired 560 rounds of ammunition and exposed seventeen feet of film; Reahil meanwhile expended 192 rounds and exposed five feet of film. Both pilots returned safely and were later awarded the DFC. But neither survived the war. Still with 609 (West Riding) Squadron, Charles Detal was killed in an accident near Acklington, Northumberland, on 23 March 1944. Twenty-five-year-old Fred Reahil, now with 268 Squadron, was reported missing over Normandy on 18 8 June 1944.
9
Detal then spotted a second Junkers Ju 52 and a further Messerschmitt Bf 110 of 3/NJG 4 dispersed in bays extending south into the woods surrounding the airfield. After three attacks upon it, the Ju 52 was left alight. Hits were also seen on the Bf 110 which was fired on once. By the time he had completed his passes, Detal had exhausted his ammunition. He then amused himself by making two or three more passes to take photographs with his camera gun. The results of these passes and the earlier attacks can be seen in Pictures (4), (5), (6) and (7). In the subsequent report, it was noted that the “lack of reaction” on the part of the German personnel at the airfield, together with “the relative lightness of the flak”, suggested the attack had “achieved complete surprise”. Heading home, Detal – seen in Picture (8) – re-crossed the French coast at Pointe Haut Blanc; Reahil, Picture (9) at Gravelines – from where anti-
JANUARY 2011
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THE SILENT SIEGE When Allied troops invaded Normandy in June 1944, the decision was made to bypass Jersey and the other Channel Islands. This meant that the islands remained in German hands until the end of the war. It also meant that the usual food supplies sent from France by the Germans ceased – and the Channel Islanders and the German garrison slowly began to starve. John Grehan and Martin Mace examine this desperate period in Jersey’s wartime history.
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I
n June 1940 as the Panzers rolled up to the Channel coast, Winston Churchill was faced with an unpleasant decision. With the fall of France, the Channel Islands were certain to be the Germans’ next target. The decision which Churchill had to make was whether or not to defend the islands and in doing so expose them to the horrors of modern warfare, or to allow the Germans to walk into British territory unchallenged.
The latter course of action was chosen as the islands were too close to France, and too far from mainland Britain, to be defended with any prospect of success. By attempting to defend the islands Britain would only be subjecting the islanders to unnecessary suffering. Four years later, Churchill was confronted with the same decision but in reverse. The Allied armies were poised to re-invade France and again the question of how to deal with the Channel Islands was raised. If Allied forces attacked the Channel Islands the German garrison was certain to fight back and this would almost certainly subject
the islands to the kind of devastation that Churchill strove to avoid in 1940. The easiest solution was to by-pass the islands and leave them in the hands of the Germans until the end of the war. But this would mean still more suffering for the islanders and no-one knew how long the war would last. The Germans expected the islands to be attacked and Hitler considered that even if besieged the garrisons of the three Channel Island fortresses of Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney could hold out providing the civilian population (including the concentration ABOVE:
In 1988 work on Jersey’s Occupation Tapestry began. Some 29,857 hours of stitching later, the twelve panels that comprise the tapestry had been completed by no less than 233 embroiderers – each of the twelve panels was completed by one of the twelve parishes on the island. The scene depicted here, from the panel entitled “Red Cross”, was embroidered by the Parish of St Martin. The Occupation Tapestry can be seen in the Maritime Museum at New North Quay, St Helier Harbour, Jersey. For more information, visit: www.jerseyheritage.org
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THE SILENT SIEGE
BRITAIN AT WAR
RIGHT and BELOW LEFT:
Relief for the Channel Islands is imminent – the SS Vega is pictured approaching the British Crown Dependencies during December 1944. The Swedish-registered vessel, which had been chartered by the International Red Cross for the task of delivering the food parcels, had been a frequent visitor to the Channel Islands before the war. (Both courtesy of Damien Horn/ Channel Islands Military Museum)
camp prisoners on Alderney) was removed – other than those people who worked on the land. Discussions were held regarding the evacuation of the islanders but nothing was put into place before the start of Operation Overlord. Churchill chose not to attack the islands and after D-Day the islands found themselves cut off from the Continent. This meant the end of the usual food shipments from France and, as the islands were still occupied territory, no help could be sent from the UK. The siege had begun. * On 19 September 1944, the German Foreign Ministry advised the British authorities that supplies for the civilian population of the “former” British Channel Islands were exhausted. The Germans were willing to let all islanders be evacuated to the United Kingdom except men fit to bear arms or, alternatively, they would allow Britain to send food into the islands. Churchill would not countenance this. In a letter dated 27 September 1944, he wrote: “I am entirely opposed to our sending any rations to the Channel Islands ostensibly for the civil population but in fact enabling the German garrison to prolong their resistance. I therefore prefer to evacuate the women and children at once, and I would offer that men capable of bearing arms should be bound not to take any further part in the war ... I
60
would rather face this than go on feeding them. It is no part of our job to feed armed Germans and enable them to prolong their hold on British territory. Moreover our aircraft have many other tasks to perform.” His words of a few days earlier described his views more succinctly: “Let ’em starve ... They can rot at their leisure.” He meant the Germans, of course, but the consequences of this decision affected the population as much as the garrison. The reply that was eventually sent to the Germans was that as they were the Occupying Power the responsibility for feeding the population was theirs alone. This was in fact incorrect. There was nothing in the Hague Convention that stipulated an army of occupation was obliged to feed an occupied people. Indeed the only such provisions in the Convention related to the exact opposite – that of the right of the occupying army to requisition food. The Germans had no need to feed the islanders and Churchill had no inclination to feed them. Tough times were indeed ahead for the Channel Islanders.1 * On 2 October 1944, the number of mouths that needed feeding on the islands was 28,500 troops and 62,000 civilians. The largest number was in Jersey which had a population of 39,000 and a garrison of 12,000. Even at this date food was already becoming scarce and desperate times
produced desperate measures. Tea and coffee, for instance, ran out at a very early stage and all manner of substitutes were attempted. Carrot tea and parsley tea were made, as well as acorn coffee and also barley coffee. “We also had carrageen moss that people used to collect and make a sort of jelly,” one girl remembered. “Potato flour would make a sort of cornflour and that was good. I used to go home and my parents would manage to get an egg, which must have been on the black market.”2 “We grated raw potatoes and fried the peel,” Marjorie Bird recorded. “We had to queue for even the smallest amounts of food. Often a swede would be cut in half and sold to two people.”3 Maggie Moisan remembered that twice a week her mother used to prepare her family a salad. It would be composed of nettles, dandelions, and any herbs she could find growing wild. Because they had long run out of toothpaste, the result was that the children’s teeth eventually turned green.4 It was not only food that was running out, but also the means to cook the food. Bob Le Sueur recalls just how bad the situation became: “Then the gas gave out; those days in the urban areas most people relied on gas for cooking, so tar became important – if you could get tar from the gas works, which was about all they had left. This was a by-product of the manufacture of gas, you could mix tar with soil and sawdust or with
JANUARY 2011
anything you had to make little tar balls and sitting room fires would be converted into cooking with this revolting stuff. And then finally electricity gave out.”5 The gas supply ended on 21 December 1944, and was not restored until 15 June 1945. ABOVE:
A wartime document which lists the cargo that was carried by the SS Vega during one of its visits to Jersey prior to the liberation. Today, such items would be referred to as ‘humanitarian aid’. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/ Channel Islands Military Museum)
ABOVE RIGHT:
Colonel Iselin, a Swiss representative of the International Red Cross, seen here on the right, discusses the unloading of the Vega with German officials. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/ Channel Islands Military Museum)
BELOW:
Another view of the SS Vega in December 1944. Note the Red Cross markings and characteristic “S” painted on her funnel. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/Channel Islands Military Museum)
BELOW LEFT:
A surviving example of the wooden packing cases that held the Red Cross food parcels. This specimen can be seen at the Jersey War Tunnels. (HMP)
JANUARY 2011
By November of 1944 the situation in Jersey was near breaking point and though Churchill persisted in his view that any food sent to Jersey would end up in the hands of the Germans, he finally agreed to allow the Red Cross to send food parcels to the islanders – but only on the understanding that the Germans were still responsible for providing the civilians with the basic ration. This offer was passed onto the Germans on 7 November. Before replying to Churchill’s offer, the Germans took the decision to confiscate all the food stocks of the civilian population and to reduce their rations to the minimum to support life. This followed a report from Generalleutnant Graf von Schmettow, the commander-in-chief, or Festungskommandant, of the Channel
Islands (and a nephew of von Rundstedt), on 31 October 1944, which claimed that the garrison’s food supplies would last until May 1945 and that there would be nothing left for the civilians after January even if they were given nothing but vegetables. The following day the weekly ration for the both the troops and the islanders was set out. For the Germans this was 2,100g of bread, 245g of fat, 500g of meat and 2,800g of potatoes. The civilians were limited to just 500g of bread, 125g of fat, 20g of meat and 500g of potatoes, barely enough to sustain life.6 The Bailiffs of Jersey and Guernsey were informed that the occupying power was no longer responsible for feeding the population and by 15 November all food had been seized by the Germans. Searches of houses and farm buildings were conducted and any food beyond the permitted level, along with any unregistered animals that were found, was immediately taken away. The Germans even demanded that the entire bean crop of Guernsey be handed over to them and on 22 December a further demand for 2,000 chickens was made.
61
THE SILENT SIEGE
Sir Ambrose Sherwill, the Bailiff of Guernsey, made a formal complaint about the German actions. He also pointed out that the Germans had recently been extracting more money from the island authorities than ever before and this meant that they had much more money available to them to buy what little food was available thus pricing the locals out of the market.7 Von Schmettow made it plain to the civilian authorities that by feeding the population he was weakening his own troops and therefore detrimentally affecting his ability to hold the islands against attack. “Germans did not build mighty fortifications without holding them to the bitter end. They would do so even if it meant disaster for the Islanders – and the besiegers alone would be to blame.” The only hope of survival for the islanders now was with the Red Cross.8 Whilst the islanders waited for the Red Cross the black market flourished. Poultry, for example, could exchange hands for as much as £20 a bird. The incidence of larceny increased dramatically, and there were several robberies with violence and more than one with murder. At night householders took up with them to their bedrooms whatever food they had, and sometimes even rabbits and hens in crates. People took knives and sticks to bed with them as protection from burglars and one couple removed the knobs
62
BRITAIN AT WAR
from their doors so that intruders would have to break down a door before they could enter. Buckets of water were even carried upstairs to pour on the heads of unwary prowlers. Despite this growing lawlessness in the islands, von Schmettow was satisfied that he had achieved his objective – he was no longer responsible for feeding the civilians and his troops would be able to hold out for many more months. * Christmas that year was a bleak affair. One Guernsey housewife, combing through her almost empty store cupboard on Christmas Eve for something for her four children, found by chance four lumps of hard French sugar which she had overlooked. She brought them out, carefully coloured them with cochineal, wrapped them up in wisps of bright paper left over from a previous Christmas and laid one on each breakfast plate the next morning. They were the children’s only Christmas treat.9 Another woman, with nine children, could only give her family two slices of bread each. Some actually had no food whatsoever left in their homes. “It hurts when you are really hungry,” Jennie Seymour once said when recounting her experiences during that t e r r i b l e
ABOVE:
The long-awaited Red Cross food parcels are unloaded from the SS Vega’s hold by German personnel. During the years of the occupation, the Channel Islanders became adept at finding alternatives for basic foods. There were many attempts to find reasonable substitutes for tea and coffee. Blackberry leaves or lime tree blossom, shredded and baked, were options for tea; for coffee, dried and roasted acorns with barley were often used. When salt supplies ran low, vegetables were sometimes cooked in salt water. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/Channel Islands Military Museum)
BELOW LEFT:
A view from the quayside as the SS Vega is unloaded. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/ Channel Islands Military Museum)
BELOW:
German personnel pictured transferring the Red Cross supplies from the quayside to Martland’s Store, Patriotic Street, on the Esplanade in St Helier in preparation for distribution to the islanders. Though the Vega docked in Jersey on 29 December 1944, the first distribution of parcels to the population was not made until the beginning of January 1945. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/Channel Islands Military Museum)
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THE SILENT SIEGE
BRITAIN AT WAR
ABOVE:
The detail on the side of one of the wooden packing cases that held the Red Cross food parcels. This example is on display in the Channel Islands Military Museum at St Ouen’s Bay. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/Channel Islands Military Museum)
ABOVE RIGHT:
The SS Vega pictured in St Peter Port, Guernsey, during her first trip to the Channel Islands in December 1944. This was the first of a number of voyages that would be made to the islands before their liberation in May 1945. In fact, the Vega was in Jersey at this time, though it sailed for Lisbon on 11 May 1945. Before departing, a ceremony, led by the Bailiff, was held during the afternoon of the 10th, during which the Captain and crew were presented with solid silver replica Jersey milk cans. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/Channel Islands Military Museum)
Islanders, relief, of sorts, was on its way. On 19 November 1944, von Schmettow was informed that Churchill had reneged on his objections, and by 6 December it was confirmed that a Red Cross ship would be sailing from Lisbon the following day. On board was a cargo of 750 tons of food parcels – packages similar to those provided to Allied prisoners of war.
BELOW:
Finally, on 27 December the SS Vega, an old Swedish vessel, docked at St Peter Port in Guernsey. “A splendid and moving sight”, recalled Léone Trouteaud of the Guernsey Red Cross. “[A] lovely slim ship, with a slender black and white funnel, little superstructure other than the bridge. Many people were there and all were weeping.”11
December. “My mother had given me a small piece of swede – raw swede. I remember eating it and, at the same time, feeling guilty because I knew it was the next day’s food.”10 But unbeknown to many of the Channel
The Vega had brought 43,000 food parcels, twenty-three sacks of salt, forty-two cases of salt, and clothing and medical supplies. The Red Cross representative on the vessel insisted on being able to supervise the unloading of the cargo and the distribution of the parcels. It was agreed that the Germans would unload the Vega but that it would be carried out in the presence of the civilian authorities. This suited the Germans
German Rote Kreuz (Red Cross) personnel and members of the St John Ambulance supervise the unloading of the food parcels at Martland’s Store. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/ Channel Islands Military Museum)
JANUARY 2011
as they were able to check the parcels for sabotage and intelligence equipment. Von Schmettow also insisted that there must be no communication between the crew of the Vega and the islanders. It was during her stay at St Peter Port that the Vega sustained damage to her keel – to such an extent that it was feared that she might have to be laid up for repairs. The damage had been caused by the Vega being “allocated a most unsuitable berth” (probably the Cambridge berth) where she would have “taken the bottom at low water”.12 Nevertheless, two days later the Vega sailed for St. Helier, carrying with it two German officers for security. An equally excited and expectant population awaited its arrival here – along with the balance of the 100,000 food parcels that had been despatched from Lisbon. Across Jersey, Guernsey and Sark one parcel per person was handed out – parcels provided by the New Zealand and Canadian Red Cross Societies. “The islanders opened them like children opening presents,” wrote Alan and Mary
63
THE SILENT SIEGE
ABOVE:
A selection of contents from the Red Cross food parcels, including powdered milk, raisins, Maple Leaf Canadian cheese, plum jam, rolled oats and tinned butter. These items are part of the Red Cross display in the Channel Islands Military Museum. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/ Channel Islands Military Museum)
ABOVE RIGHT:
Residents of Jersey make their way home with their distribution of Red Cross food parcels. This is Gloucester Street in St Helier looking from Royal Parade towards the Esplanade. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/Channel Islands Military Museum)
BELOW:
The SS Vega memorial which is located on a wall half-way along Albert Quay in St Helier harbour. Part of Jersey’s Occupation Trial, this memorial commemorates the arrival of the Swedish vessel in December 1944. (HMP)
Seaton Wood, “and gazed enraptured at forgotten delicacies – real tea, real coffee, real biscuit, chocolate and marmalade, cheese and tinned meat. Some people carried their parcels with them everywhere,
64
BRITAIN AT WAR
and would not be parted from them; some planned elaborate schedules for spreading their contents over a whole month; one man ate so much at one sitting that he was violently ill and had to be saved by a stomach pump. But everyone talked of little else for days except the marvellous parcels and the marvellous taste of the things in them.”13
small quantity of tobacco, and some leather for repairs.14
The “marvellous” parcels contained almost unimagined luxuries for the starving islanders. Tea, biscuits, corned mutton, sardines, lamb, green peas, milk powder, chocolate, prunes, butter, salmon, coffee, corned beef, sugar, raisins, jam, condensed milk, cheese, marmalade, soap, pepper and salt. The intention was that the Vega would return each month and therefore the parcels were designed to provide the recipient with 462 calories each day for a month.
“To those who remembered the cock-a-hoop German conquerors of 1940,” commented Alan and Mary Seaton Wood, “it was ironic to see men in the same uniform, five years later, rummaging in dustbins, or being lined up on parade to search for limpets, or combing hedgerows for berries and nettles to boil and eat. Some of them even died, in Socratic fashion, by eating the poisonous root known to the Greeks as hemlock.”
It was the first of six voyages made by the Vega. The second one took place in February and there was then one on each of the following four months. On its second voyage the Red Cross vessel brought a double issue of the parcels, a few medical supplies, a
Whilst the islanders’ situation had improved immeasurably, the Germans remained on reduced, and rapidly diminishing, rations. So desperate for food did they become, many family pets disappeared.
For the islanders, their existence during the years of German occupation would
JANUARY 2011
have long-term consequences. After the liberation, the Chief Medical Officer of the British Government’s Ministry of Heath, having visited the islands, reported that the children’s teeth were “exceptionally sound”. This he attributed to the lack of sugar and sweets during the five years of occupation. On the other hand, the children’s body growth had been retarded by the reduced diet. Those up to fourteen years of age proved to be on average two-and-a-half inches shorter in height “compared with standard measurements”.15 * The German commanders were as relieved as the civilians at the arrival of the food parcels. Admiral Kranche, Commander of the German Group West and who had overall responsibility for the Channel Islands area, wrote: “Now that we have succeeded in getting the Red Cross to supply the civilians ... we can consider it certain that our forces will be able to hold out in the islands beyond the year 1945.”16 Of course Admiral Kranche was being far too optimistic. But the islands were not liberated until 9 May 1945, following the German surrender. It cannot be said that either the British Government or the German occupying forces gained any credit in their treatment of the Channel Islanders during the siege period.
help them in 1944. As one islander bitterly remarked: “You know, we had to wonder why no attempt was made to drop food supplies during that year, 1944. They were being dropped in Holland and Belgium, but never here … During the last six months of ’44, most local people felt a bit betrayed.”17 It is difficult to disagree. n
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The authors wish to extend their grateful thanks to the following individuals and organisations for their invaluable assistance with this article: Damien Horn, curator and owner of the Channel Islands Military Museum; Chris Addy, Collections Manager of the Jersey War Tunnels; Anna Baghiani, Assistant Librarian of the Société Jersiaise; and Howard Baker.
Understandably, the Germans generally looked after themselves and ignored the sufferings of the islanders. On the other hand, Admiral Kranche had made it clear that he was willing to allow British ships to land supplies on the islands yet Churchill refused to allow this, even though the desperate plight of the islanders was perfectly well known in London. Churchill had abandoned the Channel Islands in 1940. He did little to
LEFT:
A German soldier inspects the contents of one of the parcels – no doubt marvelling at this bar of chocolate provided by the Canadian Red Cross. Another photograph in the series of this same soldier reveals that on his left arm is an Afrika Corps cuff title. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/Channel Islands Military Museum)
TOP RIGHT:
Also to be seen on Jersey’s Occupation Trail is this “Victory V” in Royal Square, St Helier. A careful inspection of the paving stones reveals the shape of a large “V” for victory. It was laid there during the latter stages of the war by stonemason Joseph Marie Le Guyader under the cover of repair work he was carrying out. Following the liberation, the letters E, G and A were added, along with the year 1945 (just visible in the immediate foreground), to commemorate the arrival of the Vega. (HMP)
ABOVE RIGHT:
On its first trip to the Channel Islands, the Vega carried some 1,500 Red Cross invalid parcels – such as the example seen here. (Courtesy of Damien Horn/Channel Islands Military Museum)
JANUARY 2011
NOTES: 1. TNA ADM 116/5356 and TNA PREM 3/87, cited in Charles Cruickshank, The German Occupation of the Channel Islands (Sutton Publishing, 2004), pp.284 & 285. 2. Mrs Betty Thurban, interviewed by Chris Addy, Collections Manager Jersey War Tunnels, on 12/11/2003 for the ‘Long Wait’ exhibition. 3. Bryan Chalker, Out of the Frying Pan into Der Führer, p.58. 4. Author interview with Maggie Moisan. 5. Robert (Bob) Le Sueur, interviewed by Chris Addy, Collections Manager of the Jersey War Tunnels, 27/10/03 for ‘The Long Wait’ Exhibition. 6. Cruikshank, Ibid, p.291 7. Letter to Generalleutnant Graf von Schmettow, 21 October 1944, disclosed by Anna Baghiani, Assistant Librarian of the Société Jersiaise, courtesy of Howard Baker. 8. Cruikshank, p.292
9. Alan Wood and Mary Seaton Wood, Islands in Danger (Four Square, London, 1967), p.253. 10. Roy McLoughlin, Living With The Enemy (Starlight Publishing, St Helier, 1999), p.102 11. L. D. Trouteaud, Memoirs of Léone D. Trouteaud, pp.16-17, supplied by Anna Baghiani. 12. Wood, Ibid, p.254. 13. Channel Islands Merchant Shipping 19401945 (Channel Islands Occupation Society (Jersey Branch), Grouville), p.75. 14. P. Le Sauteur, Jersey Under The Swastika (Superior Books, London, 1968), p.169. 15. Roy McLoughlin, Ibid, p.142. 16. Wood, Ibid, p.255. 17. Ken Podger and Roger Fauvel, interviewed by Chris Addy, 26/11/2003, for “The Long Wait” exhibition.
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BAD LUCK
COMES IN THREES
Being shot down will always be an occupational hazard for aircrew in wartime. For the vast majority who were forced by circumstances to bale out and take to their parachute, just once was enough. However, during the Second World War one Spitfire pilot had the misfortune to suffer such a fate on not one but three occasions! Chris Goss investigates the incidents that befell Clive Hilken.
F
or Sergeant Clive Geoffrey Hilken, even during pilot training in the early part of the summer of 1940 bad luck seemed to be following him around.
was to 74 Squadron, the renowned “Tiger Squadron”, which was then under the command of the South African Squadron Leader Adolph “Sailor” Malan.
On 17 July 1940, Clive, then with No.7 Operational Training Unit based at Hawarden in Cheshire, was flying dual in a Miles Master with an experienced instructor, Sergeant Lionel Pilkington. Pilkington had recently returned from fighting in France with 73 Squadron. Having been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal, like many other combat veterans, Pilkington found himself teaching trainee pilots how to survive when they came up against the Luftwaffe. Despite his experience, Pilkington was unable to prevent an accident which resulted in the two-seat Master being written off – though both he and Hilken were uninjured.
The squadron had already seen much action and had recently moved to RAF Wittering for a much-needed and well-deserved rest. It was, however, destined to move twice more. Remaining away from the majority of the hectic activity of the Battle of Britain, on 15 October 1940, the squadron arrived at Biggin Hill. Just five days later Hilken experienced his first dogfight, and had to resort to the use of a parachute for the first time.
Then, just three days later, whilst formation flying, Hilken’s Hurricane suffered engine failure. The novice pilot was forced to crashland on Prestatyn Beach in North Wales.
That afternoon, 74 Squadron had been scrambled from Biggin Hill to intercept a German formation which was reported at 20,000 feet. Following “Sailor” Malan, the squadron climbed at full throttle before the pilots broke formation. At this moment, Hilken decided to follow his section leader, Flying Officer John Mungo-Park – the latter having become separated from his wingman.
Two accidents in three days did not deter Hilken, and, having persevered, he successfully completed his pilot’s training. His first posting to an operational unit
Sticking close to Mungo-Park, Hilken, wary of the presence of Luftwaffe fighters, weaved his Spitfire Mk.IIa, P7426, to and fro in the skies over south London and northern Kent.
JANUARY 2011
However, in the course of his manoeuvring, Hilken had fallen behind his No.1. In order to close up and regain his correct position, Hilken stopped weaving. It was, as he discovered only moments later, a fatal decision. “… The explosion shook the aircraft,” Hilken later recalled, describing the moment that his Spitfire was hit by the fire from a Messerschmitt Bf 109. “From the bottom of the cockpit, smoke came up and the aircraft was uncontrollable. I baled out at what must have been 20,000 feet. My flying boots, however, remained in the cockpit. I hadn’t unhitched my oxygen tube and the rubber stretched and gave way without pulling my mask off giving me what turned out to be a beautiful black eye to add to the many bits of cannon shell which I had received in my left hand, right arm, face and body …” MAIN PICTURE:
Spitfires on a sweep during 1941 – it was during such a sweep that Sergeant Clive Hilken was forced to take to his parachute for the third time in just eight months. (All images courtesy of Chris Goss unless stated otherwise)
ABOVE:
Sergeant Clive Hilken.
67
BAD LUCK COMES IN THREES
ABOVE:
Sergeant Rex Mallet, Sergeant Jamie Dyke and Sergeant Clive Hilken (on the right), all 74 Squadron Spitfire pilots, pose for the camera at RAF Manston in April 1941.
RIGHT:
The 74 Squadron badge, showing the source of the unit’s unofficial title of “Tiger Squadron”. The whole of Sergeant Hilken’s operational RAF career was served in this squadron. (www. clavework-graphics.co.uk)
BRITAIN AT WAR
his parachute by two Land Army girls who were quickly on the scene. His problems were not yet over, for a local farmer arrived, armed with a shotgun, convinced that Hilken was “one of them”! Nationality established, the battered fighter pilot was whisked off to Orpington hospital where he was operated on to have the shrapnel removed.
BELOW LEFT:
A period of recuperation followed, after which, in early 1941, Hilken returned to his squadron. Little would he have known how soon it would be before he was again thankful for the presence of his parachute.
BELOW RIGHT:
In the early evening of 21 April 1941, Hilken and five other pilots were on patrol over Maidstone when they were advised of the presence of a formation of incoming enemy fighters. The 74 Squadron pilots changed course to intercept.
Two examples of the Miles Master two-seat trainer, similar to the one in which Sergeant Lionel Pilkington and his trainee, Sergeant Clive Hilken, had an accident on 17 July 1940 – though on this occasion a parachute was not required. Sergeant Lionel Pilkington, seen here on the left, with two 73 Squadron pilots; Flight Lieutenant Lovett and Flying Officer Orton.
As he descended under his parachute, Hilken also realised that the harness was too tight and his efforts to loosen it off failed. Fifteen minutes later he was back on the ground, having landed in an orchard near Tonbridge. The Spitfire, meanwhile, slammed into the ground near the village of Cowden, eight or so miles south-east of Tonbridge. Hilken was helped to extricate himself from
68
The Luftwaffe aircraft were at a higher altitude, so the Spitfires started to climb towards them. The German pilots, on the other hand, out-climbed them at which point, using the extra height to their advantage, they dived on the British ’planes, scattering them. Clive Hilken quickly found himself alone and turning his Spitfire tightly was unable to see any other aircraft, whether friend or foe. He could hear other pilots on the radio, followed by an order for 74 Squadron to return to its
base. He was just about to dive for home when he spotted two aircraft to the east, both of which were heading towards him. It was with some alarm that he suddenly recognised the pair for what they were – yellow-nosed Messerschmitt Bf 109Fs. Hilken was not to know at the time, but he was being stalked by two experienced German pilots, one of whom was, it is believed, the Luftwaffe ace Major Werner Moelders (who, by this time, had amassed a tally of some sixty-five “kills”). The other pilot was Oberleutnant Wilfred Balfanz, who by the time of his death on the Eastern Front some two months later had shot down ten aircraft. The two German fighters initially stayed together but as soon as Hilken turned
JANUARY 2011
towards his base, they split up. One flew straight towards Hilken who then turned sharply to face the threat. At this point, the Messerschmitt then broke away downwards. Observing the German fighter below him, Hilken, considering his options, decided that he would try and turn the tables. He rolled his Spitfire and dived towards the Messerschmitt, only to find that it effortlessly pulled away. Looking towards the sun, Hilken then noticed the second German fighter climbing up in an effort to manoeuvre into a favourable attacking position. Confident at having managed to fend off two enemy fighters, Hilken thought that the time was right for him to make his move. But, in so doing, he had momentarily forgotten about the first Messerschmitt, flown by Wilfred Balfanz, which he had last seen diving away.
ABOVE:
Flight Lieutenant H.M. Stephen DSO (on the left) chats to Flight Lieutenant John C. MungoPark whilst the latter sits in the cockpit of his 74 Squadron Spitfire. Attaining the rank of Flight Lieutenant on 31 December 1940, Mungo-Park became acting Squadron Leader on 10 March 1941, when “Sailor” Malan was promoted. Within a matter of weeks he would be shot down over northern France during the same offensive sweep in which Sergeant Clive Hilken was forced to take to a parachute for the third and final time.
ABOVE RIGHT:
One of the attackers on 27 June 1941: Hauptmann Wilhelm Balthasar. Balthasar was killed in action less than a week later on 3 July 1941. He was buried in a Flanders cemetery alongside his father who had been killed in the First World War.
RIGHT:
Hauptmann Rolf Pingel of JG 26 – the other Luftwaffe commander involved in the combats of 27 June 1941. Like his JG 2 counterpart, Pingel did not survive contact with the RAF for long. He was attacked over the South Coast by Spitfires on 10 July 1941, force-landed his aircraft in a grain field near Dover and was taken into captivity.
BELOW:
One of 74 Squadron’s Spitfires pictured in early 1941.
JANUARY 2011
“This was my downfall,” Hilken later recalled. “The other one obviously came up below and his cannon shells took away part of my starboard wing. The aircraft went over and down into a vertical spiral dive. I think that the elevators or tail had been badly hit for I couldn’t get any help from the trim wheel and so I got out … “Just after my ’chute opened, I found I was being circled by a Spitfire whose pilot waved to me. I waved back and he left me to have my drift, followed by what turned out to be an Army scout car. For when I landed on cabbages in an allotment not far from Deal, it was not long before a Major and driver came – just long enough for me to have accepted a lovely cup of tea from a thoughtful motherly old lady from a nearby house.”
undertaken in support of a bombing raid by Bristol Blenheims. But even from the start the omens had not been good. Hilken’s wingman had trouble getting his engine started and had no option but to abandon his participation in the sweep.
Once again Hilken had been wounded by cannon shell splinters, but this time predominantly in his left side. The wounds were not as serious as before and he was able to return to flying by the middle of May 1941. However, they say that bad luck comes in threes. Hilken’s third baling out came on his seventh offensive sweep over the Continent on the evening of 27 June 1941. This time, he would be off flying for much longer. The offensive sweep late that evening was
69
BAD LUCK COMES IN THREES
Continuing without him, Clive was forced to fly as the “tail-end Charlie”. Worst of all, the sun was directly behind him so he could see nothing in his rear view mirror. The flight that day was uneventful until shortly after the squadron had crossed the French coast. At this point, a force of German fighters attacked without warning. It transpired that the aggressors were two formations of Messerschmitt Bf 109Fs, again led by very experienced German pilots; Hauptmann Wilhelm Balthasar, the commander of Jagdgeschwader 2, and Hauptmann Rolf Pingel, who commanded I Gruppe of Jagdgeschwader 26. It is believed that it was Pingel who targeted Hilken’s Mk.Vb Spitfire (W3252). Hilken himself recounted what happened next: “At 2,500 feet over France our squadron became separated on a weaving turn from the other squadrons of the Wing. Our CO applied full throttle in an attempt to regain his place in the formation but in the process the rest of us found ourselves spread over the sky up to two miles behind the main formation. Now, to weave and watch your tail meant losing the formation. The only way to catch up was to do what our CO had done – go full bore.”
70
BRITAIN AT WAR
Despite once stating that “having twice survived being shot down … I swore that no enemy would get on my tail again without my knowledge”, Hilken suddenly discovered that this resolution had been broken.
ABOVE LEFT:
“I was attacked and hit by cannon shells from below and on the starboard side. I pulled round to port and yelled into the radio but it was dead, and I could see that my Spitfire was spewing out a white trail and couldn’t see the attackers. I can only presume that they came out of the sun and attacked from below, hit me and went on below to take out Pilot Officer Sandman and Squadron Leader Mungo-Park.”
One of the successful German pilots on 27 June 1941 – Leutnant Siegfried Schnell of JG 2. The German pilots claimed eight Spitfires that day.
A battle-damaged Spitfire. In addition to the 74 Squadron losses on 27 June 1941, 19 Squadron had one pilot shot down and taken prisoner and one wounded.
ABOVE:
BELOW:
The wreckage of Squadron Leader John Mungo-Park DFC & Bar’s Spitfire, Mk.Vb X4668, being inspected at the crash site near Adinkerke on 27 June 1941.
In those few moments, 74 Squadron lost three aircraft and their pilots. Both Hilken and Sandman, a New Zealander, survived.
forced to once again abandon his aircraft. As he did so he realised that his parachute was loose fitting:
Twenty-three-year-old John Mungo-Park was shot down by one of the I/JG 26 pilots. He was killed when his ’plane crashed north of Dunkirk, a couple of miles over the Belgian border. He is buried in Adinkerke Military Cemetery, about sixty miles north of his father who was killed in October 1918 whilst serving as a Lance Corporal in the Royal Sussex Regiment.
“As it came up my side I grabbed it and held it desperately to my chest. My rip-cord handle was now underneath the pack and I didn’t want to try and reach below it in case the pack fell away.
With little in the way of options, Hilken was
“I now realised that the pack must have caught on the hood as I came out of the cockpit and the outer cover had ripped showing the white of the main ’chute. This made me realise that if I could pull it out of
JANUARY 2011
BAD LUCK COMES IN THREES
BRITAIN AT WAR
the pack it might deploy, but it meant that I had to hang on with one arm over the pack while I did so and of course when the white ’chute streamed out and the edge caught the air, it just ripped completely out of my grasp in an explosion of white. “I was then swinging, rather wildly, in a nice sunny French evening. I realised that my leg and ankle were bleeding and it was pretty cold …” As he drifted closer to the ground, Hilken could see people running towards where they thought he was going to land. This he duly did, but heavily on one leg. As he gathered his parachute towards him, a Frenchman ran upto him: “He was calling to me in English ‘Get your clothes off’, but seeing blood all over me then said ‘Oh! That’s no good’. [He] ran past me. The others following him put a tourniquet round my upper leg and proceeded to take
turns carrying me on their backs. “Two gendarmes appeared and were sent packing as at the end of the road there was a French truck waiting and my rescuers were just about to lift me on board when round the truck came the ‘opposition’.” * Having firmly established himself as a member of the Caterpillar Club, or a similar body if he had not used an Irvin parachute, Hilken ended his third descent in the same manner as his previous two – wounded.1 In fact, his injuries on this occasion were such that he spent some time in a hospital in Lille, after which he was sent to a specialist centre for the treatment of bone injuries and disorders in Brussels. With time his wounds healed sufficiently
TOP and ABOVE:
Luftwaffe personnel inspect the wreckage of an unidentified Spitfire brought down during a sweep over Northern France in early 1941. In all, Fighter Command lost eight Spitfires, from four different squadrons, over the Continent on the day that Sergeant Clive Hilken was shot down. Of this number, three of the pilots, including Mungo-Park, were killed. Of the others, at least four, Hilken amongst them, would be imprisoned in Stalag Luft III.
BELOW LEFT:
Oberleutnant Josef Priller of JG 26 was another of the victorious Luftwaffe pilots from the events of 27 June 1941.
enough to prevent his repatriation to the United Kingdom. He would spend the remainder of the war as a PoW, during much of which time he was incarcerated in Stalag Luft III. Hilken was not released until May 1945, at which point he finally returned home.2 Whilst Clive Hilken had more than proven that bad luck does come in threes, unlike so many of his friends, colleagues, and counterparts, he at least had the fortune to have survived the war. n
NOTES:
1. The club was founded by the Irvin Airchute Company of Canada in 1922 – the firm’s founder, Leslie Irvin, is credited with inventing the first free-fall parachute in 1919. The name “Caterpillar Club” makes reference to the silk threads that made the original parachutes. The club’s motto is “Life depends on a silken thread”. 2. Hilken was released from the RAF as a Warrant Officer late in 1945. In March 1949, he was commissioned in the RAFVR. Clive Hilken died in June 2005 aged 85, (see Kenneth Wynn, Men of the Battle of Britain (CCB Associates, Selsdon, 1999), p.230.)
JANUARY 2011
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31 MARCH 1941
D
espite officially being neutral, on 30 March 1941, the US Government took steps to assist the Allied war effort at sea when President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the seizure of Axis and Axis-controlled merchant vessels in US ports. It was an act that one newspaper columnist at the time said ranked “as one of the highest of the war’s sensations”.
The operation involving the US Coastguard, Army and Navy, was so timed and executed that the seizures in US ports and the Panama Canal Zone allowed the Axis crews little opportunity to offer large-scale resistance. By the end of the day, it was reported by the US Treasury that twentyeight Italian, two German, and twenty-six Danish ships had been taken into “protective custody” – as the White House termed it. The Danish crews in particular offered little resistance. In announcing the seizures, the US Treasury pointed out that the Masters of all of the Danish vessels, along with six Danish seamen, were left aboard each ship. The remaining members of the Danish crews were handed over to the US immigration authorities, who in turn reported that they would receive preferential treatment compared with the Italian and German seamen. A spokesman at the Danish Legation in Washington responded by stating that no protest would be made against the seizure of the Danish ships, four of which were taken over in the Philippines. The commander of the US Coastguard, Rear Admiral Russel Waesche, pointed out that the Danish ships had only been placed in “protective custody” because of the US authorities’ fear of possible sabotage “by others than members of their crews”. The German and Italian crews were not so obliging. At Boston forty-three German and Italian seamen began a non-sleep and hunger strike due to proceedings instigated by the immigration authorities. The dissention soon spread and it was subsequently reported that the crews of sixteen German and twenty-seven Italian ships were taking similar action. By the end of the day, it was confirmed that a total of seventy vessels, totalling 320,000 tons, had been seized. Of this amount, 169,000 tons were Italian, 9,000 tons German and the remainder Danish. Direct action by their crews, referred to as “sabotage” by the American government, had resulted in extensive damage to at least twenty of the Italian merchant vessels. A further five had, it was discovered, been prepared for scuttling at the piers. The most determined resistance occurred at the port of Jacksonville in Florida. Here, the coastguard boarding parties reported “some little trouble” during the seizure of the SS Ireana Confidenza. At Wilmington, North Carolina, sabotage to one Italian freighter was only discovered
JANUARY 2011
GERMAN FREIGHTER SCUTTLED
when the US prize crew tried to move the vessel and realised that her crew had damaged the engines. On the following day, action was taken against further Axis ships in ports in Central American countries. At Punta Arenas, Costa Rica, the authorities attempted to seize the German freighter Eisenach (4,323 tons) and the Italian freighter Fella (6,072 tons). Even as armed police began boarding the two vessels that morning, explosions tore through their hulls. Both were soon alight; the Eisenach in particular was quickly engulfed by flames – it is this ship that can be seen in this Image of War. Both the Fella and the Eisenach were pronounced a total loss. The Costa Rican authorities detained a total of 120 Italian and German members of the ships crews – all of whom were subsequently charged with committing arson. At Portland, Oregan, fifty-two officers and men of the Italian motorship Lerne were similarly charged with sabotage. It was apparent that the American authorities had planned the seizures carefully. At Newark, for example, the minute that a group of five damaged Italian freighters had been secured by the armed parties, teams of US naval technicians and engineers boarded the ships. Within hours they had reported to Washington that “repairs could probably be made speedily, as the machinery is all of standard English manufacture”! Despite a degree of uncertainty surrounding the legal status of the ships seized in US waters, it was made clear at the time that the majority of the vessels would be prepared “for transfer to Britain”. One of the options under consideration was to put the vessels into service on American routes, allowing an equal of American tonnage to be freed up for use on the transatlantic service. One Senator, Walter F. George (a one-time isolationist but later an ardent supporter of the Lend-Lease programme between Britain and America) suggested that the US should “buy the ships for Britain”. Senator Burton K. Wheeler (who was vociferously opposed to any form of aid to the UK at the start of the war) declared that the seizure of the Axis ships was “another act of war”. However, on the afternoon of 30 March, the US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, the War Secretary, Henry Stimson, and Colonel Knox, the Navy Secretary, met to discuss the thorny question of “how the US can manoeuvre part or all of the confiscated 320,000 tons to aid Britain”. Just how many of these ships did find their way into service with the UK’s Merchant Navy has not been established. (HMP)
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THE
BLACKBURN BUCCANEER D
Geoff Simpson looks at the career of the Blackburn Buccaneer – an outstanding and lamented jet that gave great service to the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
r e b m o B t s a L s ’ - Britain
uring the Second World War, the Soviet Navy was predominantly a coastal and short-range force but as the Cold War developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s it became an ocean-going and long-range force that could match the powerful fleets of the Western Allies. One result was the appearance of the Sverdlov-class of cruisers, named after a leading Bolshevik. It was a design of warship that represented a considerable threat that NATO had to counter. It is now more than half a century ago that an aircraft appeared on the scene that was designed to deal with this formidable threat. MAIN PICTURE:
In its heyday, the Blackburn Buccaneer was the world’s most advanced low-level, highspeed strike aircraft. The type is remembered as a purposeful-looking, rock-steady aircraft offering a formidable strike weapons platform, flying low and fast over the wave-tops or land with equal effectiveness. This painting, by Philip E. West and entitled Buccaneer Strike Force (overall print size of 28” by 20”), shows Fleet Air Arm Buccaneers operating from HMS Ark Royal. For more information on the Primary Edition, Artist Proofs, or Remarques, visit: www.swafineart.com
JANUARY 2011
It would go on to become greatly respected and fondly remembered in both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, as well as in the South African Air Force – though it would never be called upon to attack Soviet cruisers. The Blackburn Buccaneer was the type in question – a two-seat strike/attack aircraft capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear weapons. It emerged from Naval Staff Requirement NA.39 issued in June 1952, made its first flight on 30 April 1958, and entered service with the Royal Navy in July 1962. It would be thirty-two years later that the Buccaneer made its last flight with the RAF and departed to the great regret of the crews who had flown it day-by-day and in action. Security considerations dictated that in its
early days the new aircraft was known as the Blackburn Naval Aircraft (BNA) or Blackburn Advanced Naval Aircraft (BANA), so, perhaps inevitably, the nickname “Banana Jet” entered aviation vocabulary. For the Blackburn factory at Brough, in East Yorkshire close to the River Humber, a new star was born, one that would, for many years, be the key reason for the existence of the site and the employment it provided. The first flights of the Buccaneer took place from the nearby airfield of Holme on Spalding Moor – a wartime Bomber Command station. The early Buccaneer S.1 had two de Havilland Gyron Junior turbo jets, each providing 7,100lb of thrust. However, the aircraft was underpowered and suffered from high fuel consumption, which significantly reduced its range. A temporary solution involved air-
77
THE BLACKBURN BUCCANEER – BRITAIN’S LAST BOMBER
BRITAIN AT WAR
RIGHT:
A formation of three Fleet Air Arm Buccaneers, from No.801 Naval Air Squadron, pictured just off the Scottish coast whilst operating out of RAF Lossiemouth, July 1962. Reformed in this year, 801 NAS was the first of the FAA’s squadrons to be equipped with the type – it was followed in January 1963 by 803 NAS, another reformed unit. (Mirrorpix)
to-air refuelling from Supermarine Scimitars, but a permanent means of developing the Buccaneer had to be found. This improvement came through the development of the Buccaneer S.2. Powered by two Rolls-Royce Spey turbofans, each giving 11,030lb of thrust, the S.2 had almost doubled the range of the type and gave a much greater performance when operating from an aircraft carrier. In fact, the Buccaneer was the first aircraft to be designed for highspeed, low-level attacks at sea, allowing it to come in below radar and missile defence levels.1 Not only did its wings fold, so too did both its nose and tail cones, allowing for very economical use of space in ships’ hangars. The Buccaneer also used airbrakes as well as an arrester hook for landing. With the Fleet Air Arm, the Buccaneer would serve with Nos. 800, 801, 803 and 809 Naval Air Squadrons, as well as with the training squadron, No.736, at HMS Fulmar, Lossiemouth.
Following Southern Rhodesia’s Universal Declaration of Independence from Britain in November 1965, HMS Eagle, with No.800 Naval Air Squadron (NAS) embarked, sailed for the Mozambique Channel to monitor the shipping in the area. In February 1966, the Beira Patrol was formed by the Royal Navy to enforce the UN-agreed sanctions established to prevent oil being delivered to Sothern Rhodesia through the port of Beira. The Buccaneer was one of the types that undertook the twenty or so sorties flown each day in support of this task. At the same time, HMS Eagle had steamed some 30,000 miles and remained at sea for an unprecedented seventy-two days. The Buccaneer also saw service during the Indonesian Confrontation and over Aden, including the final withdrawal of British forces in 1967. In 1972 two Buccaneers of No.809 NAS, embarked in HMS Ark Royal, carried out a long-range sortie to overfly Belize City when Guatemala threatened to invade British Honduras. In March 1967, the Buccaneer found itself in the media spotlight and very much closer to home. The giant oil tanker
Torrey Canyon had run aground on Pollard’s Rock, between Land’s End and the Isles of Scilly and the biggest ever oil spill, up to that point, was threatened. After initial hopes of salvaging the Torrey Canyon had ended, the British government called for desperate measures. These included FAA Buccaneers being despatched from Lossiemouth to bomb the tanker with 1,000lb HE bombs. For the Royal Navy, retirement of the Buccaneer came in 1978. This was a decision that had been brought about by the decommissioning of HMS Ark Royal. One observer, when asked by a colleague in the mess what he thought of the Buccaneer, replied that it had everything an observer might wish for in the back seat, adding that “one had to be quick to turn everything on otherwise it wouldn’t have warmed up before the test flight ended.”2 RAF involvement with the Buccaneer resulted from the cancellation of both the British Aircraft Corporation TSR2 and General Dynamics F-111K tactical bombers. Originally a Buccaneer variant, as a replacement for the Canberra, had been rejected by the RAF in favour of the TSR2. Many of the Royal Navy’s Mk.2A aircraft were transferred to the RAF and additional builds of the Mk.2B were ordered.
ABOVE:
caneer allows the A low pass by a Blackburn Buc picture an open bomb to ity rtun oppo the photographer of carrying a nuclear bay. The Buccaneer was capable bombs. (Mirrorpix) lb 1,000 een sixt weapon or up to
78
JANUARY 2011
ABOVE:
Smoke can be seen rising from the shipwrecked Torrey Canyon following attacks by Fleet Air Arm Buccaneers on 28 March 1967. Despatched from RAF Lossiemouth, the Buccaneers dropped forty-two 1,000lb bombs on the ship which had run aground, and was breaking up, between Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. The intention was for these bombs to open up the oil tanks for the following Sea Vixens and RAF Hunters to drop ‘fire bombs’ and burn the oil that had escaped. (Mirrorpix)
ABOVE RIGHT
A Buccaneer S2B pilot, of 12 Squadron, refuels his aircraft from a VC10 tanker over Scotland, 1992. (Mirrorpix)
BELOW LEFT:
A McDonnell Douglas Phantom FG1 (F-4K) of 892 NAS waits as a Blackburn Buccaneer of 809 NAS is launched with the aid of a steam catapult from HMS Ark Royal, 1971. (Mirrorpix)
BELOW:
Today the memory of the last “all British bomber” is kept alive by the likes of the Blackburn Buccaneer Society, the Buccaneer Aircrew Association and through the existence of preserved examples such as those at the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington and at Bruntingthorpe, Leicestershire, where regular “fast taxi” demonstrations are carried out. This Buccaneer S2B (RAF serial XX889) is preserved at Kemble by the Buccaneer Society. (Courtesy of Adrian Pingstone)
JANUARY 2011
The aircraft entered RAF service with 12 Squadron at Honington, Suffolk, on 1 October 1969. Eventually the Buccaneer would serve (in chronological order of entering service) with Nos. 15, 16, 208 and 216 squadrons, in addition to No.237 OCU, which formed at Honington in 1970. Considerable and varied were the RAF roles undertaken by the Buccaneer. Nos. 15 and 16 Squadrons were based at Laabruch in Germany from 1971 and for more than a decade operated in the overland strike role, maintaining one aircraft on fifteen minutes “quick reaction alert” (QRA) in the nuclear role as part of NATO’s Cold War defences. In 1974, 208 Squadron was formed. This unit had the unique task of being permanently assigned to NATO’s Northern Flank and squadron crews spent many detachments and exercises flying over Norway. In 1982 six Buccaneers were deployed to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus for Operation Pulsator to provide support for the British peacekeeping force in Lebanon. A newspaper report from the time captured the significance of the operation: “To the second the ’planes, two each time, screamed in from the sea at 500ft to pass directly over the British base at Hadith before turning on their wing tips to head north for a sweep over the Lebanese capital. “Then, as we waited on the rooftop for the aircraft to complete their steep turns, and
come back over the hills in contour-hugging formation, the desultory shelling in the hills above the British position was joined by bursts of machine-gun fire. After their second run the ’planes passed no more than fifty feet above a pylon in front of the British base, then dipped down to fly out to sea at minimum altitude. The two did a great deal for the morale of the British troops.” Generally, from 1982 the Buccaneer was consolidated in a maritime attack role. However, a final fling would bring the aircraft back into the public eye during the First Gulf War in 1991. Six Buccaneers, prepared within just three days of being requested, were sent on a nonstop nine-hour flight to Muharraq Air Base, Bahrain, followed by another six, to provide a laser designation capability for the RAF. The then Secretary of State for Defence was asked at the time why such an old aircraft was being despatched to the Gulf. He is quoted as replying: “Because we need to improve the standard of our precision bombing”. A similar comment was made by Wing Commander Bill Cope (the Buccaneer detachment commander and Officer Commanding 208 Squadron) when asked the same question by the waiting TV and radio reporters on landing in Bahrain. He is reported as saying: “My old grandmother is getting on a bit, but you wouldn’t want to mess with her!”3
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As well as designating targets for other aircraft, the Buccaneer crews could also designate their own bombs. In so doing, during Operation Granby (the name given to British military operations during the First Gulf War) Buccaneers destroyed major bridges over the Euphrates and Tigris rivers as well as attacked airfield installations and aircraft in bunkers. So ended the British-operated Buccaneers first and only war during all their years of service – work not undertaken in the low-level maritime strike role for which the type was originally intended, but at medium level heights of between 19,000 and 29,000 feet. One of the many to remember the Buccaneer fondly is Group Captain Bob Kemp CBE, today Regional Director for the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Northern England. “I flew 3,000 hours in both the Mk.1 and the Mk.2 Buccaneer in both the overland and maritime roles,” he recalls, “always at low-level and always with the throttle pretty well open. “One of my favourite sorties was the Clyde run – south between the Isle of Skye and the mainland, fly between the Cumbraes, turn hard left, up the coast past the Cloch lighthouse, clip Gourock pier and see the faces of the boys fishing from the pier – looking down at you – right twenty degrees to avoid overflying Helensburgh and then drop into Loch Lomond to look for unsuspecting wind surfers! It was really the sport of kings – the same thing every day – excitement.
which was very important when aiming and delivering a weapon.” The Buccaneer, the last “all British bomber”, was an outstanding low-level strike aircraft capable of carrying a heavy bomb load over very long distances. When it was retired from operational RAF service on 31 March 1994, one crewmember remarked: “The only replacement for the Buccaneer is another Buccaneer.”4 “Sadly it was never developed to its full potential in RAF service because of the political and commercial considerations associated first with the TSR 2 and then with the tri-national development of the Tornado,” commented RAF historian Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork, MBE, who served with the Fleet Air Arm before commanding 208 Squadron when it was Buccaneer-equipped. “The Buccaneer was often underrated by those who never flew it”, he continues. “It was a superb aircraft when in its element at very low-level and high speed, an environment where few fighters could deal with it. With its wide range of weapons it could tackle most targets in both the maritime and the overland roles and when it was finally retired, it was, ironically, at the height of its capability with new nav-attack and ECM systems, a selfdefence capability and new weapons.
ABOVE LEFT:
A Blackburn Buccaneer S.2B of 12 Squadron RAF performing a touch-and-go landing at the U.S. Navy Naval Weapons Center at China Lake, California, during an air show of the US Navy’s test and evaluation squadron VX-5 on 16 September 1981. (Courtesy of D. Cornelius, USN/US Department of Defense)
ABOVE RIGHT:
A flypast of some of the aircraft used by the RAF during the First Gulf War. Accompanied by a Tornado GR1, Tornado F3 and a Jaguar GR1, the Buccaneer can be seen in the foreground. (Mirrorpix)
BELOW:
Another surviving Blackburn Buccaneer S.2 – this time photographed at Elvington on 18 August 2007. This aircraft, XN974, was the first of the production Buccaneer S.Mk.2s. On 4 October 1965, XN974 undertook the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic by a Royal Navy aircraft, completing the 1,950mile flight between Goose Bay in Canada and RNAS Lossiemouth in four hours and sixteen minutes. (Courtesy of Brian Burnell)
NOTES:
1. Christopher Shores, 100 Years of British Naval Aviation (Haynes, Sparkford, 2009), pp.255-256. 2. David Wragg, A Century of British Naval Aviation 1909-2009 (Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 2009), p.173. 3. Quoted on the excellent website: www.blackburn-buccaneer.co.uk 4. Ibid.
“To those of us who had the privilege to operate it, it was a brilliant aircraft and we loved it a great deal.” n
“The Buccaneer was probably the strongest airframe I ever flew in. At low-level and even at high speed it provided a very stable ride – a ‘stable table’ as we called it. This gave the crews a feeling of safety and stability
80
JANUARY 2011
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a George Cro Flying Officer Anthony Tollemache was recognised for his gallantry when he risked his life trying to save a passenger from his aircraft which crashed whilst on an exercise in 1940. Sadly his medals were stolen in 1988, seemingly gone forever. Then, seventeen years later, a passer-by noticed something glistening in the sand on a beach 10,000 miles away.
O
n board Flying Officer Anthony Henry Hamilton Tollemache’s 600 (City of London) Squadron Bristol Blenheim on the night of 11 March 1940, was his air gunner and a passenger. They had been engaged on a searchlight cooperation exercise and were due to land at their home base of RAF Manston.
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for Gallantry was more usually known as the Empire Gallantry Medal (EGM). Instituted on 29 December 1922, by King George V, the EGM was then the highest civilian gallantry award, and was also presented to military personnel for acts of gallantry not in the face of the enemy.
As the Blenheim approached the flare-path at 23.20 hours, at the end of the exercise, the aircraft struck a tree and crashed into a field. The ’plane immediately burst into flames but Tollemache had been thrown clear of the wreckage. Incredibly, his air gunner had also managed to escape. Looking round him, Tollemache soon realised that the third member of the aircraft’s complement was still inside the burning Blenheim, the wreckage of which resounded to the sound of exploding ammunition.
Then, on 24 September 1940, the EGM was revoked by Royal Warrant. All living recipients, and the next-of-kin of recipients who had died or were killed after 3 September 1939, were obliged to exchange their EGM for the new George Cross. So it was that by the end of 1940, Tollemache was a holder of the new award.
What happened next was outlined in Tollemache’s citation for the award of The Medal of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for Gallantry, which was published in the London Gazette of 6 August 1940: “Flying Officer Tollemache, with complete disregard of the intense conflagration or the explosion of small arms ammunition, endeavoured to break through the forward hatch and effect a rescue. He persisted in this gallant attempt until driven off with his clothes blazing. His efforts, though in vain, resulted in injuries which nearly cost him his life. Had he not attempted the rescue it is considered he would have escaped almost unscathed.”
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* In February 2005, a tourist was walking along the beach at Maroochydore on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Australia, when he noticed something glimmering in the sand. He picked it up and handed his find in to a policeman. Having a military background, Constable Brendan Laverty immediately recognised the item of lost property for what it actually was. Constable Laverty set about trying to
Having suffered serious burns in the incident, Tollemache went on to become one of the first RAF Guinea Pigs. He subsequently spent a long time in hospital and underwent some of the first experimental skin grafts. Having eventually made a full recovery, Tollemache returned to duty. In 1944 he was an RAF ground liaison officer in Normandy when the tank he was in was hit by a shell. Once again, Tollemache escaped major injury and went on to survive the war. Anthony Tollemache could not escape death forever and in 1977 he died in a car crash in Paris at the age of sixty-three. His medals, five in all, remained with his widow in her home in Ely, Cambridgeshire. It was from there on 5 December 1988, that Anthony Tollemache’s medals were stolen. When they conducted their investigations the Cambridgeshire police concluded that the thieves had targeted the address because of the presence of the medals as nothing else was stolen. That seemed to be the sad end to the story of a very brave man.
JANUARY 2011
ross Mystery establish the legitimate owner of this rare gallantry award. Since its inception in 1940, the GC has been awarded posthumously to eighty-seven recipients and to seventy-four living people. When you include those who were originally awarded other medals, the total number of recipients is 406. As such Constable Laverty was confident he would eventually be able to track down the owner. But time was not on his side. If the legal owners could not be found in ninety days then the medal would have to be returned to the person who found it. After contacting coin and medal shops in Australia, Interpol, the Ministry of Defence and the Metropolitan Police, Brendan Laverty eventually made contact, via email, with Jonathan Hoad in the Armed Forces
Personnel Administration Agency (AFPAA). Following detailed research and verification by the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association, Jonathan was able to ascertain that the George Cross in Laverty’s possession was that of Arthur Tollemache. The medal was passed by Constable Laverty to the British High Commission at Canberra, from where it was despatched to the AFPAA’s Central Office. At this point, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lockyer, Head of the Ministry of Defence’s Medal Office, arranged to have all of Flying Officer Tollemache’s medals properly mounted and handed back to his family. To make this an even happier ending, this collection now includes a new medal. When checking Arthur Tollemache’s records it was found that he was entitled to a medal which he had never claimed – the Air Efficiency Award.
The discovery of the long-lost George Cross halfway across the world and almost two decades after its theft remains a puzzle to this day. Marion Hebblethwaite, who has written several books on George Cross recipients, said: “There is a whole bundle of collectors out there and normally once a medal is sold it just gets whistled away. It will be locked in a safe or kept in a case and you hear nothing more about it. “Why anyone would dump a George Cross on a beach, or take it to the beach and lose it, is a mystery. Perhaps someone inherited it, realised it was stolen, and thought, ‘Let’s get rid of it.” The truth will probably never be uncovered. n
RIGHT:
A portrait of Flying Officer Anthony Tollemache.
LEFT:
An unlikely setting for the discovery of a George Cross stolen from a Cambridgeshire home nearly twenty years previously – Maroochydore Beach on Australia’s East Coast. (Courtesy of Roz Abbotts)
BELOW:
A 600 Squadron Bristol Blenheim IF at RAF Manston during 1940. Note the unusual location of the aircraft’s serial number, L8679, on the rudder. (ww2images)
JANUARY 2011
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WIN! A BUNDLE OF PEN & SWORD DVDs
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TWO runners-up will receive a copy of Pen & Sword’s Tracing Great War Ancestors: Finding Uncle Bill DVD.
Assault on Normandy: Pegasus Bridge The coup de main operation mounted by the 6th Airborne Division, as one of the opening moves of D-Day, remains one of the great events of the Second World War. As well as examining the history of British Airborne forces, this DVD charts the mounting of the operation, the bridges’ spectacular seizure and 7 Para’s fight to hold on until relieved.
Wittman v Ekins On the battlefields of Normandy in August 1944, two men participated in one of the most famous tank actions of the Second World War. Even now, after the passing of so many years, the identity of the man who knocked out Panzer Ace Michael Witmann is widely debated. This DVD examines that action, as well as documents Witmann’s career.
Somme, 1st July 1916 – Northern The DVD covers the events of 1 July 1916, on the northern part of the Somme battlefields, from Gommecourt, Serre, Beaumont Hamel, and Thiepval to Ovillers. It contains a visual tour of each of the key areas in the northern sector, together with maps, archive film and contemporary stills. Key attacks are introduced and narrated and guidance is given on how to visit the battlefields today.
Tracing Great War Ancestors: Finding Uncle Bill Genealogist Simon Fowler shows Richard Hone the ropes – with some surprising results. Armed with details of Richard’s great uncle’s service between 1914 and 1918, the film sets out to “Find Uncle Bill” and trace his war on the Western Front unitl his death just weeks before the Armistice.
Somme, 1st July 1916 – Southern The companion to the above, this DVD looks at the southern part of the Somme – from la Boisselle, Fricourt, Mametz, Carnoy to Montauban. Again, it contains a visual tour of each of the key areas in the southern sector, together with maps, archive film and contemporary stills. Included is an interactive map, then and now, panoramic views from certain key points of the battlefield and a contemporary map of the whole front not seen before. No purchase necessary. You do not need to use this form; to enter either fill in this form, a copy of it, or simply write the required details on a postcard or piece of paper and send it to ‘Britain at War’ Magazine (Pen & Sword DVDs), Green Arbor, Rectory Road, Storrington, West Sussex, RH20 4EF. Closing date for entries is 3 February 2011. The winner will be notified by email or telephone.
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1940 Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot
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A number of Semi Armour Piercing (SAP) 60lb rockets were fired, and the ship was also bombed with one 500lb Medium Capacity bomb and one 250lb General Purpose bomb. Pictures (1) and (2) show the attacking Liberator’s hit on the stern of the Alsterufer, with debris being thrown up to 300ft into the air. Trails from rocket projectiles previously fired at the vessel can be seen to the right of Picture (2).
During the Second World War the Air Ministry produced a weekly (subsequently twice-monthly) publication called Evidence in Camera. Eventually comprising of eight volumes, totalling some 102 issues, this publication, which had “to be kept under lock and key when not in use” was “a collection of illustrations” relating to the work of both Allied photo-reconnaissance and operational aircraft. Each month we present a selection of the subjects covered and images included.
At least one bomb hit the ship in the area of her No.4 hold, and a fire was immediately seen to break out. Picture (3), taken shortly after the previous two, shows the blockade runner dead in the water in the Bay of Biscay, seriously damaged and the fire rapidly spreading, the boat being well alight aft. At this point the Alsterufer was listing slightly to port. Four lifeboats had been launched by her crew and can be seen alongside, while a number of the crew are on deck below the 2
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bridge which is also burning. For his actions that day, Pilot Officer Doležal was later awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
THE END OF A GERMAN BLOCKADE RUNNER Of the five German blockade runners which left the Far East towards the end of 1943, only one, the SS Osorno, succeeded in reaching a French port. Having survived attacks by Coastal Command aircraft, the Osorno eventually docked at Le Verdon – the blockade runners’ usual port was Bordeaux. Close behind her was another German merchant ship, the SS Alsterufer. The Alsterufer is known to have originally sailed to the Far East between 20 March and 4 April 1943. It was not until early on 27 December 1943, almost within sight of home, that she was spotted by the crew of a Short Sunderland following a westerly course some 600 miles south-west of Ushant. It was a sighting that, within hours, would signal her fate. At 16.07 hours that day, the Alsterufer was located by the crew of a 311 (Czechoslovak) Squadron Consolidated B-24 Liberator GR.V (a version of the type modified for service with Coastal Command). Flown by Pilot Officer Oldrich Doležal, the Liberator, BZ796 (‘H’), immediately commenced 4 an attack.
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Having been required to disengage, the 311 Squadron Liberator soon departed the scene of the attack to return to its base at RAF Beaulieu in Hampshire – during the attack one of its engines had been damaged. In the meantime, other aircraft had begun to arrive. At least one of these was a 502 Squadron Handley Page Halifax (aircraft ‘Q’). At 18.00 hours that day, its crew sent the following message: “Alsterufer’s position - 46°33’ N, 18°55’ W. She is sinking. Abandoned. About seventy men in four lifeboats.” Some accounts also state that two further Liberators also attacked the Alsterufer, but missed. Photographs taken the following day – Pictures (4) and (5) – reveal the blockade runner to still be alight. It was noted that she had settled lower in to the water but that the sections of the ship forward of the bridge were “apparently still not afire”. However, abandoned by her crew, the Alsterufer sank later that day. Fiftytwo survivors were rescued two days later by four corvettes from the Royal Canadian Navy’s 6th Escort Group, whilst other vessels picked up the remaining twenty men. A cargo of 344 tons of tungsten (wolfram) concentrate was lost to German war industries.
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THE MOLYBDENUM MINES AT KNABEN In 1894 the French armaments firm Schneider Electric developed and produced the world’s first steel armour plates incorporating the chemical element molybdenum. In simple terms, it was found by Schneider Electric’s scientists that molybdenum delayed the growth of grains during the crystallization of steel and thus imparted to it a fine homogeneous structure ensuring high properties of the metal. It was during the First World War that the benefits truly became apparent. Initially, the first British and French tanks were constructed using a hard, but brittle, manganese-based steel. Such armour-plating did not provide an adequate degree of protection against German artillery. At this point, it was decided to add molybdenum to the steel used. The results transformed tank warfare. Despite being only a third of the thickness of the original armour plates, the steel with molybdenum added offered a far higher degree of protection. By the Armistice, demand for molybdenum had soared. At the same time, molybdenum steel was being used in the manufacture of barrels for artillery pieces and rifles, aircraft and vehicle parts, steam boilers and turbines, cutting tools, and even razor blades. In 1940, the only molybdenum mines operating in Europe were located at Knaben in Norway. Situated some forty miles south-east of Stavanger, the mines soon came under German control following Operation Weserübung in April that year. Such was the importance that the occupiers assigned to the mines, a 1,000-strong garrison was soon established in the area along with a number of anti-aircraft guns. Such defences, however, did not deter the RAF. The first aerial attack on Knaben came on 3 March 1943. Led by their Commanding Officer, Wing Commander Peter Shand DFC, ten 139 (Jamaica) Squadron de Havilland Mosquitoes were tasked to undertake a low-level daylight attack.
target – as seen here in Pictures (1) and (2) – leaving the plant enveloped in clouds of white and brown smoke. A number of the Mosquito crews also reported seeing debris from the explosions having been blown to heights of 1,000ft. In the oblique aerial photograph Picture (1), a number of bomb bursts can be seen on or adjacent to the equipment of the flotation plant at Knaben. Picture (2), meanwhile, shows explosions between two ore bins, indicated by the letter ‘A’, while there is a further burst on what is believed to be a feeder adjoining one of the ore bins. This is marked by the letter ‘B’. It was after the successful attack that the problems began for the attackers. Having turned for home, the Mosquitoes were intercepted by at least four Focke-Wulf Fw 190s. The Luftwaffe pilots latched on to one of the RAF ’planes – DZ463 flown by 27-year-old Flying Officer Arthur Norman Bulpitt and 20-year-old Sergeant Kenneth Alfred Amond – and it was shot down into the North Sea off the Norwegian coast. Bulpitt’s body was eventually washed ashore and he was buried in Egersund (or Ekersund) Ladesteds Churchyard on the south-west coast of Norway. Amond has no known grave.
This squadron, only the second bomber unit to be equipped with the Mosquito, had recently completed one of its most notable operations – the daylight raid on Berlin on 30 January 1943. On this occasion, two 139 Squadron crews attempted to interrupt an important speech by Germany's Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. Although the attack failed to achieve its aim, the raid still made the news having occurred only a few hours after 105 Squadron had made the RAF’s first daylight raid on the German capital and had succeeded in keeping Goering (also scheduled to deliver an important speech) off the air for more than an hour.
The Fw 190s also damaged a second aircraft during their attacks. Flying Officer J.H. Brown’s Mosquito was so badly damaged that he was forced to make an emergency landing at Leuchers – which he achieved despite the loss of the aircraft’s hydraulics to operate the undercarriage and no air speed indicator, rudder controls or elevator trim.
Having taken off from RAF Marham at about midday on 3 March 1943, the ten Mosquito B Mark IVs had an uneventful flight to southern Norway. During the attack itself, bomb bursts were observed on and around the
A much larger attack on the mines was made on 16 November 1943. On this occasion 130 USAAF B-17s participated in the Eighth Air Force’s mission No.131.
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Following the attack on Knaben, AOC Air Vice Marshal J.H. d’Albiac sent a message of congratulations to the squadron for a “well planned and splendidly executed attack”. “Mosquito stings judiciously placed are very painful,” he added.
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PROBLEM PICTURE From the very first edition, each issue of Evidence in Camera contained what was eventually called a “Problem Picture”. Selected from the “normal operational photographs”, each image invited the reader to guess what the object(s) indicated are – exactly as we do here! The answers are at the bottom of the page.
NIGHT ATTACKS ON GERMAN WATERWAYS During November 1943, Bomber Command undertook a number of attacks against vital stretches of the network of German inland waterways. At the time, these raids were described as being “complimentary to the devastation of Germany’s industrial heart”.
The first of the two attacks illustrated here, both of which occurred on the night of 21/22 November 1944, was made against the so-called Glane by-pass on the Dortmund-Ems Canal – the third time Bomber Command had struck at this location since the night of 23/24 September the same year. It is at this spot that the River Glane passes under a double section of the canal – this cross-over can clearly be seen in Picture ‘A’ (arrowed). The Lancaster crews achieved “an excellent concentration” which completely demolished the aqueduct over the river. The embankments of both branches of the canal were repeatedly breached, one section 190 feet long being totally obliterated, leaving some 600 yards of the west-bound canal completely dry. Water pouring from the canal, combined with the floods from the blocked River Glane, spread out across the surrounding countryside up to a distance of several miles. The “target itself was turned into a morass of flooded bomb craters”.
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Direct hits on the embankment caused a number of breaches which allowed the water to drain from a thirty-mile stretch of the canal. The original caption states that the subsequent photo-reconnaissance survey, which was when Picture ‘B’ was taken, noted that fifty barges (some of which can be seen here) had been left stranded by the attack.
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Answer: A “swimming stadium at the end of Filipstad Quay, Oslo.”
On the same night, 123 Avro Lancasters from No.5 Group, carrying a combined load of 627 tons of bombs, attacked a section of the Mittelland Canal near Gravenhorst, Germany. Despite adverse weather conditions, the aircraft bombed below a cloud base of 4,000 feet. A “heavy concentration of craters” was subsequently noted stretching east to west across the canal – as can be seen in Picture ‘B’.
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Reconnaissance Report... GEORGE CROSS HEROES Incredible True Stories of Bravery Beyond the Battlefield Michael Ashcroft Publisher: Headline Review www.headline.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-7553-6082-6 Format: Hardback, 389 pages, illustrated Hardback RRP: £20.00 Much publicity, quite rightly, is given to the actions of those individuals that have been awarded the Victoria Cross, yet those awarded the George Cross appear to receive less attention even though the degree of courage in each case is comparable. It is only the circumstances which differ.
Interestingly, the warrant states that, “The Cross is intended primarily for citizens, and award in our military services is to be confined to actions for which purely military honours are not normally granted.” The reason why this is so surprising is that whilst King George VI believed that the cross would be awarded primarily to civilians this has not proven to be the case. Out of the first 100 medals awarded no less than seventy-six were granted to members of the armed forces and of the 161 direct awards only fifty have gone to civilians.
The George Cross came into being because of the “total” nature of the Second World War which exposed members of the public as well as the armed forces to the horrors of warfare – for courage is not confined to those in uniforms. Indeed, somewhat surprisingly a greater proportion of the awards of the George Cross have been made posthumously than of the Victoria Cross. To date, eighty-six George Crosses have been posthumously awarded, more than fifty per cent of the total. Compare this with just under 300 posthumous awards of the Victoria Cross out of a total of 1,356.
Amongst that select band of civilians is an even more unique group, women. Only four women have been granted direct awards of the George Cross (another five had their Albert Medals translated into George Crosses). Amongst these was Barbara Harrison, a BOAC Air Stewardess. On 8 April 1968, she was on board a Boeing 707 when one of the engines caught fire and fell off shortly after take-off from Heathrow. With flames creeping along the wing, the pilot made an emergency landing back at the airport. The escape ‘chute was deployed but this became twisted and a colleague had to climb down to straighten it. Barbara was left alone to shepherd the passengers to the escape doors in the now fiercely burning aircraft. All the passengers were successfully evacuated except one disabled women at the rear of the aircraft. Barbara went back to try and save the woman but both were overcome
Unlike some publications of this nature the entries in this book are sufficiently detailed for the reader to fully appreciate the reasons for the awards being granted. The book also sets out in full the Royal Warrant of 24 September 1940, which instituted the George Cross.
BOO OF T K H MON E TH by the smoke and fumes. Their bodies were later found side by side. Michael Ashcroft’s George Cross Heroes, published to mark the 70th anniversary of the award, is set out in chronological fashion. Beginning with the first award in 1940 – that of Thomas Alderson who rescued several people from trapped houses during the Blitz – Lord Ashcroft examines the George Cross actions that followed, bringing the story up to date with the most recent awards bestowed upon Staff Sergeants Olf Schmid and Kim Hughes of the Royal Logistic Corps on 19 March 2010. These two men had volunteered to undertake bomb disposal work. It was just such duties that prompted King George to institute the George Cross in the first place, as Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) explained: “In the early days of the war the King was impressed by some very heroic deeds in mine and bomb disposal – deeds performed far from any human enemy but requiring the peak of courage for a considerable time. He felt that no existing award for gallantry reflected such an impersonal bravery. In the following months there were more deeds of great courage when no enemy was present; more bombs and mines made safe, rescues after bombing, accident and disaster in truly terrifying circumstance.” It is sobering to think that despite the passage of seventy years and the advancement of weapons and the apparent ending of largescale international conflicts, men of the bomb disposal teams are still being killed trying to make explosive devices safe. • Reviewed by Martin Mace. BELOW: For his role in seeing his ship through to Malta in August 1942, the Master of the tanker Ohio (seen here limping into Valetta’s Grand Harbour on 15 August 1942), Captain Dudley William Mason, became the first merchant seaman to be awarded the George Cross. (IWM GM1480)
BOOK REVIEWS
Reconnaissance Report... THE LUFTWAFFE’ S BLITZ The Inside Story November 1940 – May 1941 Chris Goss Publisher: Crécy www.crecy.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-85979-148-9 Format: Hardback, 264 pages, illustrated Hardback RRP: £18.95 With so many Battle of Britain and Blitz books having been published, all with the same basic themes, it is refreshing to read something a little different. The Luftwaffe’s Blitz, as the name indicates, predominantly tells the story of this aspect of the Second World War from the German perspective. It opens with an explanation of Hitler’s decision to re-direct his bombers from purely military targets to civilian and industrial ones. The author then continues the narrative with the reminiscences of surviving Luftwaffe aircrew that he has interviewed over a long period of time. It is these personal accounts, from more than thirty German veterans, that form the basis of the book around which the author weaves the complex story of the events of the six months between November 1940 and May 1941. It is a narrative supported by quotes from official documents, newspaper reports and the words of some of the British aircrew from the RAF’s embryonic night fighter force that they fought against. By providing both sides of the story this gives the book a real feeling of the duelling nature of the air war, demonstrating how it felt to be in close personal combat with the enemy. As most of the aircrew that Chris Goss interviewed were shot down and became prisoners of war they have dramatic tales to
tell of the attacks that they endured. An example of the graphic nature of these accounts is that of 20-year-old Leutnant Günther Hübner of 3/KGr 606, in which he details the events of 17 February 1941: “We flew over the Channel Islands and left Cherbourg to our right. We then took a course over Brighton to London. We saw the big ‘U’ of the Thames and dropped our bombs. We changed course again and suddenly we were attacked from behind. It all went very fast. The cockpit was full of smoke and the right engine on fire. I was not able to keep the ’plane on course and we lost height rapidly ... after some time I told my crew to bale out. As the last one, I had some difficulties in getting out of my seat because the ‘plane went out of control as soon as I let go of the stick. Finally I made it and the ’plane went down near my parachute. I landed in a field near the burning ‘plane and broke my ankle.” The aircraft that shot down Günther Hübner’s Dornier Do 17 was a Bristol Beaufighter flown by Squadron Leader James Little of 219 Squadron who, “opened fire at about 200 yards range aiming at centre of fuselage. This was immediately followed by flashes and sparks of dazzling intensity which appeared to come mostly from the starboard side of e/a.” To complete the picture, the author then quotes the newspaper report of the following day: “The wreckage was strewn over a wide area and what were apparently cannon shells and incendiary bombs exploding for some time. A fire-watcher and a farmer were guided to where the injured pilot lay by his groans.” The Luftwaffe’s Blitz, with so many comprehensive accounts like that of the shooting down of Günther Hübner’s Dornier, is not just a very interesting book to read – it is also a very valuable record of the Blitz which will provide important source information for historians for decades to come. • Reviewed by Robert Mitchell.
(MIRRORPIX)
WAVELL
LADY UNDER FIRE ON THE WESTERN FRONT
Soldier & Statesman Victoria Schofield Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84884-320-8 Hardback. 509 pages. RRP: £30.00
The Great War Letters of Lady Dorothie Feilding MM Edited by Andrew and Nicola Hallam Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84884-322-4 Hardback. 226 pages. RRP: £19.99
Archibald Percival Wavell graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1901 and was commissioned into the Black Watch – the start of a long military career stretching across two world wars, a career in which Wavell attained the rank of Field Marshal and become an Earl and Viceroy of India. This is a remarkably well researched and referenced insight into this complex character.
ARISE TO CONQUER
RAF TEMPSFORD
Wing Commander Ian Gleed DSO, DFC Publisher: Grub Street www.grubstreet.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-906502-93-5 Paperback. 214 pages. RRP: £8.99
Churchill’s Most Secret Airfield Bernard O’Connor Publisher: Amberley www.amberleybooks.com ISBN: 978-1-4456-0071-0 Softback. 256 pages. RRP: £18.99
Originally published during the war in 1942, this is a daily record of a British fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. Gleed also details his first sortie in 1939, his breakdown not so long after, his return to the RAF and battles over France, his exploits in the Battle of Britain, becoming an ace, downing Messerschmitts, and eventually being awarded the DFC for his service as leader and fighter pilot.
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When Britain went to war in 1914, Lady Dorothie Feilding wasted no time volunteering for the Munro Motor Ambulance Corps. Spending nearly four years on the Western Front in Belgium driving ambulances, she became the first woman to be awarded the Military Medal for her bravery as well as the French Croix de Guerre and the Belgian Order of Leopold.
Designed by the illusionist Jasper Maskelyne, RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire was constructed to give the impression to enemy aircraft that it was disused. But, as Bernard O’Connor reveals, nothing could have been further from the truth – just after dusk on moonlit nights, aircraft from 138 and 161 (Special Duties) Squadrons would take off with their top-secret cargoes.
JANUARY 2011
BOOK REVIEWS SABOTAGE AND SUBVERSION The SOE and OSS at War Ian Dear Publisher: The History Press www.thehistorypress.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-7524-5738-3 Paperback. 252 pages. RRP: £9.99 The author examines how SOE and OSS recruited, trained and armed their operatives, and recounts some of their guerrilla operations. Also covered are the means by which these clandestine organisations subverted the enemy by employing black propaganda, forgery, pornography and black market currency manipulation.
HOW THE SPITFIRE WON THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN Dilip Sarkar Publisher: Amberley www.amberleybooks.com ISBN: 978-1-84868-868-1 Hardback. 185 pages. RRP: £18.99 Through new research the aviation historian Dilip Sarkar argues a persuasive, but controversial, case that the Hurricane was inferior to the Spitfire during the Battle of Britain, adding that the battle could have been won by Spitfires, but not Hurricanes, alone.
INSIDE ROOM 40 The Codebreakers of World War 1 Paul Gannon Publisher: Amberley www.amberleybooks.com ISBN: 978-1-84868-868-1 Hardback. 185 pages. RRP: £18.99 Paul Gannon unravels some of the hidden stories of the First World War codebreakers who worked inside Room 40 and its military equivalent, M.I.1(b). The intercept intelligence they generated, for example, helped ensure British naval supremacy, bring the USA into the war and changed the military balance in the Middle East.
BISMARCK The Epic Chase Jim Crossley Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84884-250-3 Hardback. 170 pages. RRP: £19.99 In his new examination of the fate of the Bismarck, Jim Crossley re-examines and revises previous theories of the events. In doing so, he suggests that previous accounts have failed to reveal the full extent of the capabilities of both British and German Radar or the significance of British ULTRA signal intercepts.
WE WILL REMEMBER THEM Voices From The Aftermath of the Great War Max Arthur Publisher: Orion Books www.orionbooks.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-297-85329-9 Hardback. 276 pages. RRP: £20.00 The legacy of the First World War was often as deeply felt as the war itself, and, in some cases, much longer lasting. An entire generation of children grew up without fathers. This is the story of the men who survived, and the families of those who did not, told in their own words.
JANUARY 2011
Reconnaissance Report... AUGUST 1914 Surrender at St Quentin John Hutton Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84884-134-5 Hardback. 207 pages. RRP: £19.99 Promotion to high command is a mixed blessing. It brings with it many advantages, enough to persuade most who are offered it to accept such an appointment. It also brings responsibility, and, in the case of those who command in the armed forces, responsibility for the lives of the men under them, the honour of the corps to which they are attached, and of the country which they serve. These obligations are not always compatible, as lieutenant colonels Mainwaring and Elkington found to their misfortune in August 1914. It was in that month of 1914 that the BEF encountered the Imperial German Army for the first time and, being overwhelmed by the forces opposing it, began its famous fighting retreat from Mons. The British withdrew to Le Cateau where Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, in command of the British II Corps, stopped and fought a successful rearguard action. It was here that Mainwaring’s 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers and Elkington’s 1st Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment went into action. As part of 10 Brigade, these two battalions fought well at Le Cateau and Mainwaring and Elkington, often out of contact with their brigade commander, showed themselves to be competent leaders. Nevertheless, Smith-Dorrien was compelled to continue the retreat. The British force duly withdrew to St Quentin throughout the night of 26/27 August. In the fighting at Le Cateau, Mainwaring’s and Elkington’s battalions had become separated; they had no knowledge of the proper line of retreat and precious little ammunition. Confusion reigned. The troops staggered into St Quentin at the limit of their physical endurance. As far as the two colonels were concerned they were at the rear of the British Army, though in fact there was a cavalry detachment between them and the Germans. Upon arriving at St Quentin, Mainwaring was met by an excitable mayor who “threw up his hands, and exclaiming it was the end, all was lost.” An interpreter explained to Mainwaring that the town was surrounded by Germans. The fear expressed was that the Germans, seeing British troops in the town, would start shelling. So Mainwaring made the following promise: “You need not fear, if we cannot get our men away, we will not fight in the town.” Mainwaring and Elkington discussed the situation they were in. Should they attempt to break out with their exhausted troops, try and mount some kind of defence on the edge of the town with their limited supplies of ammunition or simply throw in the towel? The two commanders spoke to their men. Though Mainwaring proposed to try and march on to Noyon, some twenty-five miles away, he stated that no-one offered to join him in this move. So the decision was made by Mainwaring and Elkington to surrender. Mainwaring informed the mayor of this and even signed a hastily-prepared document of surrender for the mayor to take to the Germans. That was the situation when Major Tom Bridges rode into St Quentin at the head of the 4th Dragoon Guards. Bridges knew that the Germans had not in fact surrounded the town and there was still time for the infantry to escape. Bridges managed to persuade the men of Elkington’s and Mainwaring’s battalions to get back on their feet and they marched out of St Quentin. A few days later Mainwaring and Elkington, who thought they were doing the right thing in trying to save the lives of their men and of the French civilians, were arrested to face a court martial. Such are the responsibilities of high command. Congratulations John Hutton, a great story. • Reviewed by John Grehan
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BOOK REVIEWS
THE WESTERN FRONT ASSOCIATION CELEBRATES ITS THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY On 11 November 2010, the Western Front Association (WFA) celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. During the last thirty years, the WFA has maintained a proud tradition of remembering the events of the First World War and those of all nations who fought and died in the years 1914 to 1918. As part of its work, in 2005 the WFA launched its remarkable Mapping the Front project. The long complex system of trenches, for which the war on the Western Front in the First World War has become synonymous, stretched for some 450 miles from the sandy dunes of the Belgian coast, down across the Somme, through Alsace and Lorraine, finally terminating on the Swiss border in the south.
In 2005 the job of cataloguing the maps began following which the Western Front Association decided to make them available to everyone by having them digitised and placed in the museum’s Reading Room and for sale on DVDs available directly from the WFA. This magnificent project also includes many maps of other types not in general circulation. Amongst these are maps used by Douglas Haig, hand drawn or annotated maps, barrage maps or those used by the Graves Registration Unit to record exhumations. The WFA has an active membership of 6,000 in its branches and affiliated organisations throughout the world. It also publishes two journals, Stand To and The Bulletin (seen left). The WFA’s prestige journal, Stand To is posted to all members three times a year, whilst Bulletin, also published three times a year, carries reports on the Association's activities and future events, giving details of meetings at both national and local levels.
In earlier conflicts, the great commanders such as Marlborough and Wellington could plan their campaigns in the certain knowledge that the obstacles they faced, the towns and cities, hills and forests depicted on their maps (inaccurate though some may have been) were not going to suddenly move or change their characteristics. But on the Western Front the obstacles were man-made and were constantly being modified. Accurate up-to-date maps were therefore essential.
Amongst its other achievements the WFA was instrumental in helping to restore the twominutes silence on 11 November each year and in preserving the First World War Medal Index Cards from destruction. The WFA also organises the annual Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in London.
The result was that during the years of the First World War an extensive set of trench maps was produced. After the war, a large selection of these documents, an extremely valuable historical
For more information on the WFA’s work and projects, or to learn about the benefits of membership, please visit: www.westernfrontassociation.com
DESTINATION WESTERN FRONT London’s Omnibuses Go To War Roy Larkin ISBN: 978-0-9565014-0-0 Softback. 80 pages. RRP: £9.95 Available from: www.historicroadways.co.uk
READERS’ OFFER
Through extensive research in the archives of the Army Service Corps and the London General Omnibus Company, the author tells the story of the London omnibus in the First World War – a war in which one third of the company’s buses were sent to the Western Front. Over 100 archive images support the account.
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resource, was deposited in the archives of the IWM.
FOR HOSTILITIES ONLY Peter Seaman Softback, A4. 173 pages. ISBN 978-0-9524261-1-0 Copies are available (UK orders) by sending a cheque for £25.00 (normal RRP £30.00) + £3.00 P&P, payable to “Peter Seaman”, to 22 Recreation Road, Selby, North Yorkshire, YO8 5AL. Email:
[email protected] This impressively detailed publication examines the six war raised cavalry regiments: the 22nd Dragoons, 23rd Hussars, 24th Lancers, 25th Dragoons, 26th Hussars and the 27th Lancers. Each regiment is examined in two parts. The first is a general history, whilst the second details the regiment’s insignia and dress distinctions. This book is highly recommended for those with an interest in cavalry units, the specific regiments listed, or British insignia and uniforms.
THE COAST ARTILLERY DEFENCES OF THE FIRTH OF CLYDE Jeff Dorman and John Guy Softback, A4. 48 pages. Copies are available (UK orders) by sending a cheque for £12.00 + £1.00 P&P, payable to “J.A. Guy”, to 48 Ardent Avenue, Walmer, Deal, Kent, CT14 7UE. In this publication, the authors present a history of the artillery defences of the Firth of Clyde. As well as presenting an historical background, Jeff Dorman and John Guy provide fully illustrated (including colour images and drawings) descriptions of the Ardeer, Ardhallow, Cloch Point, Dunoon, Portkil, Stranraer and Toward batteries, along with Fort Matilda.
THE REDDITCH HOME GUARD 1940 – 1945 Mike Johnson Softback, A4. 48 pages. Copies are available (UK orders) by sending a cheque for £5.90 + £2.00 P&P, payable to “Mike Johnson”, to 4 Cladswell Lane, Cookhill, Alcester, B49 5JT. As the title suggests, this book provides an insight into the role and duties of the 9th Worcestershire (Redditch) Battalion Home Guard between 1940 and 1945. Accompanied by many memories of Home Guard veterans, the chapters within the book include “Redditch AntiTank Island”, “Who Would Defend Redditch”, “Home Guard Photographs” and “Weapons Available to the Redditch Battalion”.
JANUARY 2011
BOOK REVIEWS CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES James Taylor Publisher: Conway www.anovabooks.com ISBN: 978-1-84486-129-3 Hardback. 96 pages. RRP: £9.99 Working under the pen name of Fougasse, Cyril Kenneth Bird was one of the most popular cartoonists and illustrators of the first half of the twentieth century. Bird would also become famous for his wartime propaganda and information posters – many of which are featured in this colourful examination of his work.
WINGS OVER THE WAVES Fleet Air Arm Strike Leader Against Tirpitz Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84884-305-4 Hardback. 388 pages. RRP: £25.00 This is the biography of one of the Royal Navy’s legendary pilots – Lieutenant Commander Roy Baker-Falkner DSO, DSC, RN. BF, or “Daddy”, as he was known, participated in the air strike at Taranto, the search for the Graf Spee, and the hunt for the Tirpitz – to name but a few actions. He was killed in action in July 1944, one week prior to promotion and a posting ashore.
RIVER OF FIRE The Clydebank Blitz John Macleod Publisher: Birlinn www.birlinn.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84341-049-2 Format: Hardback, 338 pages, illustrated Hardback RRP: £16.99 Just after 21.00 hours on a fine moonlit evening on Thursday, 13 March 1941, the first of 236 German bombers converged upon Clydeside. Their objectives were the shipyards, storage depots and factories of Clydebank that were such an important part of Britain’s war effort. This was not the first attack of the Second World War upon Scotland – but there had been nothing like the mass raid that was about to be delivered upon Clydebank. The town was all but destroyed. From this geographically small community 528 people were killed and 617 seriously injured, many more superficially hurt. The dead were buried without coffins, lowered into their graves in bed sheets or wrapped in kitchen string.
MILITARY GHOSTS
Of some 12,000 dwellings – including tenement blocks – only seven were left entirely undamaged. Four thousand of those homes were completely destroyed. Nine schools were partially or completely destroyed; 35,000 people were made homeless. To quote from the book: “The morning of 14 March saw thousands and thousands of dazed, filthy, bloodied survivors shambling along Dumbarton Road into Glasgow and, by the night of Saturday 15 March it was reckoned that the near-fabulous total of over 40,000 people had left the town.”
Alan C. Wood Publisher: Amberley www.amberleybooks.com ISBN: 978-1-4456-0171-7 Softback. 190 pages. RRP: £14.99
What makes that figure so remarkable is that in 1941 Clydebank was a community of nominally 42,000 people. In other words almost everyone that was able to leave Clydebank, or capable of leaving, did so the morning after the raid. Many thousands of those who left would never return.
The author has produced a gazetteer of locations where ghosts of soldiers, sailors, and airmen have been reported - not only in the U.K. but also overseas. It includes not only such well-known stories as that of Sir Francis Drake’s Drum, but more modern ghosts, including those of fighter pilots from the world wars.
DONALD DEAN VC The Memoirs of a Volunteer & Territorial From Two World Wars Edited by Terry Crowdy Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84884-158-2 Hardback. 179 pages. RRP: £19.99 “The Germans are here, goodbye!” Those were the words of Donald Dean to his commander as enemy soldiers broke into his trench in 1918. The son of a Sittingbourne brick maker, Dean lied about his age to enlist in 1915, worked his way through the ranks and was awarded the VC in 1918. This is the story of a remarkable man.
CHURCHILL’S UNEXPECTED GUESTS Prisoners of War in Britain in World War II Sophie Jackson Publisher: The History Press www.thehistorypress.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-7524-5565-5 Hardback. 190 pages. RRP: £14.99 During the Second World War over 400,000 Germans and Italians were held in prison camps in Britain. It is often little known that these men played a vital part in the life of war-torn Britain, from working in the fields to repairing bombdamaged homes. This is their story, both inside and outside the camp wire.
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As can be imagined with such statistics there were countless tales of human tragedy and where there is danger and death so there is wonderful resistance and great heroism. John Macleod tells of the ARP wardens, the Police War Reserve and of course the ordinary people who rose to meet a challenge they could never had imagined that they would face. Though the Clydebank Blitz is the main focus of John Macleod’s book, it is actually a history of this small town from its origins in the late nineteenth century, through its development as the site of the great Clydebank shipyard and of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Here, at the John Brown shipyard were built the great passenger liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth and the huge battle-cruiser HMS Hood. Little wonder that it became a target for the Luftwaffe. River of Fire also devotes much space to the effects of the attack both in the immediate aftermath and in the longer term. Those effects were considerable. The town had to be all but rebuilt and this took time. As a result those that had moved away after the attack had become settled in their new lives long before there were homes in Clydebank to return to. The character of the town and its people, therefore, changed as much as the streets and the buildings. River of Fire is a wide-ranging, comprehensive account of a terrible event in the history of Scotland which until this publication had often received little attention. Now it cannot be ignored or forgotten. • Reviewed by Alexander Nicoll ABOVE: A young girl rescued from the devastation of her home on the Clyde, 14 March 1941. (Mirrorpix)
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Reconnaissance Report... JERSEY OCCUPIED The German Armed Forces in Jersey 1940 -1945 Michael Ginns MBE Publisher: Channel Island Publishing www.channelislandpublishing.com ISBN: 978-1-905095-29-2 Softback. 540 pages. RRP: £29.95 Few people have studied the German occupation of the Channel Islands, and in particular Jersey, as thoroughly as Michael Ginns MBE and this magnificent study of that period, instigated by the Jersey War Tunnels, stands as a tribute to his extensive knowledge and research. In this book Mr Ginns does not attempt to present a general overview of the German occupation. This is simply an examination of the German armed forces in Jersey, their command structure, civil administration and support services (such as the military police, field post office, medical services, food, religious services and the Forces brothel) and, of course, the astounding defences they built. The first army corps deployed in Jersey was the 216 Infantry Division which remained on the island until 1 May 1941 when it was superseded by the 319 Infantry Division. This latter division acquired the distinction of becoming the largest of its kind in the entire German Army, yet it would be one that, trapped in the Channel Islands until the end of the war, never fought in a major engagement. Also deployed in Jersey was 2./Staffel Aufklärungsgruppe 123 a long-range reconnaissance squadron of the Luftwaffe and a mixture of ships, patrol boats and minesweepers of the Kriegsmarine. The actions and deployments of all these forces are covered in great detail by the author. The main body of the book is taken up with the construction and use of the fortifications which ringed Jersey’s coast and littered its interior to prevent the island being retaken by the British. The building of these defences was an enormous undertaking and was handled by the German engineering and construction agency, the Organisation Todt. This body brought in some 6,000 foreign workers to carry out the building work. These included 2,000 Spanish Republicans, who had sought sanctuary in France as a result of the Spanish Civil War and were forced to work for the Germans, and 1,200 Russian slave workers. Some of the workers, however, were foreign volunteers who worked as uniformed overseers. A number of islanders were also employed. The massive building programme began after Hitler’s demand that the Channel Islands became an “impregnable fortresses”. Mr Ginns follows the progress of this programme, detailing every aspect of it from the movement of building materials from mainland France and along their journey through Jersey. In order to transport these materials the Organisation Todt had to build two new railways which the islanders thought was a huge joke as the last of Jersey’s railways had closed down five years earlier because they were considered “old fashioned”. Such is the detail of Mr Ginns’ book he even lists the individual locomotives used by the Germans and provides a brief history of each one. Most of the sand and aggregate was obtained locally (though some was imported) but all the cement had to be brought in from France and some even all the way from Germany. Each of the buildings constructed by the Germans are individually listed by Mr Ginns. The descriptions of all those buildings which were of a defensive nature include details of all the weapons which they held and the number of troops which would have been housed in them where this is known. Jersey Occupied is packed with statistics, crammed with figures, loaded with numbers and full of information. It will, without doubt, become the standard reference book on the German armed forces in Jersey. A fine achievement. • Reviewed by John Grehan.
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BOOK REVIEWS MONTGOMERY Lessons in Leadership From the Soldier’s General Trevor Royle Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan www.palgrave.com ISBN: 978-0-230-61489-5 Hardback. 200 pages. RRP: £14.99 Fearless, hot-tempered, and beloved by his troops – just some of the words that have been used to describe the often controversial Bernard Law Montgomery. In this biography, Trevor Royle delivers a balanced portrait of a military life that offers lessons in tactics and planning.
BOMB ON THE RED MARKERS Pat Cunningham DFM Publisher: Countryside Books www.countrysidebooks.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84674-198-2 Softback. 192 pages. RRP: £12.99 Ten members of RAF aircrew provide their own accounts of their Second World War experiences. These including a description of the raids on the battleship Tirpitz, using Barnes Wallis' Tallboy bombs, bluff and counter bluff with radio signals during the Siege of Malta, and baling out of a blazing Halifax over Berlin.
THE KENSINGTON BATTALION ‘Never Lost A Yard of Trench’ G.I.S. Inglis Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84884-247-3 Hardback. 288 pages. RRP: £25.00 Raised by the Mayor of Kensington, the 22nd Royal Fusiliers (the Kensington Battalion) suffered severely in the battles of 1917 and, starved of reinforcements, was disbanded in 1918. Drawing on a wealth of diaries, letters and official documents, as well as interviews from the 1980s, this is a fitting record of the battalion’s service.
FINEST OF THE FEW The Story of Battle of Britain Fighter Pilot John Simpson Hector Bolitho Publisher: Amberley www.amberleybooks.com ISBN: 978-1-4456-0057-4 Hardback. 214 pages. RRP: £20.00 Written in 1943 by 43 Squadron's intelligence officer, Hector Bolitho, Finest of the Few looks at his friend and fighter ace John W.C. Simpson. It was based on John Simpson’s combat reports, his personal letters and papers together with Hector’s own recollections of the heady days of the summer of 1940.
COMMANDO TACTICS The Second World War Stephen Bull Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84884-074-8 Hardback. 214 pages. RRP: £19.99 In this in-depth study of commando tactics and history, the author examines the myths and the misunderstandings that surround them, and he places these troops in the context of their times. He also demonstrates that the idea of the commando took time to develop, and that they were sometimes far from successful.
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FEBRUARY ISSUE ON SALE FROM 28 JANUARY 2011 HOME FREE In both world wars only one German prisoner of war escaped from captivity in Britain and successfully reached Germany. Robert Mitchell relates the daring escapades of Gunther Plüschow who travelled halfway round the world to get back to the Fatherland. THE LORDS OF THE MOUNTAIN “D” Squadron, 22 Special Air Service had been transported from the steamy jungles of Malaya, where visibility was measured in feet, to the open vistas of Arabia where the skyline stretched interminably. They had been called to the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman to assist the Sultan of Oman expel a group of insurgents, who were backed by the Saudis, from the territory . The rebel stronghold was high in the hills of northern Oman on the plateau of the Jebel Akhdar – the Green Mountain. Their leader, Suleiman bin Himyar, called himself “Lord of the Green Mountain” and he considered his position, more than 2,000 feet above the dusty Arabian scrub, as impenetrable – until the SAS came along. THE ROO CLUB The Caterpillar Club, an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bale out of their aircraft and who, after authentication, receive a membership certificate and a distinctive lapel pin, is well-known. But there is another such association that is little known about and, arguably, more exclusive. Ken Wright investigates the Roo Club.
OPERATION COLOSSUS On the night of 10 February 1941, a small raiding party of seven officers and twenty-eight men were dropped by parachute on the Tragino Aqueduct in southern Italy. Operation Colossus was underway. Alexander Nicoll examines the first airborne operation ever undertaken by the British armed forces. THE HARDEST DAY HURRICANE With last year’s 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain came a strong media demand for stories linked to the summer of 1940 and the almost inevitable requirement for the recovery of a period aeroplane wreck. One commission for such a project, granted to Yorkshire-based Mandrill TV by Discovery History, had quite specific requirements: the aeroplane had to be British, the pilot had to have survived, and a guarantee was required that at least an engine would be recovered. Andy Saunders reveals the intriguing story of the aircraft that was chosen to be excavated. IN THE LINE OF FIRE The sacrifice of the armed merchant ship HMS Jervis Bay will be forever regarded as a beacon of defiance in the face of adversity. On 5 November 1940, the Jervis Bay’s Captain, Edward Stephen Fogarty Fegen, courageously attacked the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer in order to protect the ships in the convoy he was escorting. His actions earned him a posthumous VC. But, asks Tony Moyle, was Fegen’s decision to engage in this unequal fight the result of what happened on the second day of the First World War, some twenty years earlier?
ONLINE For January 2011, as well as the latest news stories, we will be featuring a selection of fascinating and unique articles on the Britain at War Magazine’s website. PLEASE NOTE THAT CONTENT IS SUBJECT TO ALTERATION
As w e piec ll as a lo e o the f of histo k at a fa sc r y, w iles h Arch e dip inating eld a t i Wha ves, and the Nat into one of t th e io pres ent o nal Pape ur re rs S a gula id. r
A SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE VETERAN’S MEDALS John Grehan delves into the history behind the Distinguished Conduct Medal and grouping awarded to Sergeant Kenneth Alec John Scott DCM, Royal Corps of Signals – the only survivor of an SOE mission sent to Bulgaria in 1944 There is a railway station on the Bulgarian State Railway line between Mezdra and the capital Sofia which bears the name of Tompsân. Though sounding sufficiently Bulgarian the station is actually named after a British officer – Major Frank Thompson. Thompson was a member of the Special Operations Executive who, during his wartime service, operated with Bulgarian partisans fighting against that country’s Fascist regime in 1944. The SOE’s operation in pro-Axis Bulgaria (which from 1941 onwards included parts of Yugoslavia) was not set up until the beginning of 1944 following the arrival of Thompson and three other men. With the aid of a wireless Thompson’s mission was to act as liaison officer between the partisans and the SOE headquarters in Cairo and Bari, Italy.
operations those agents who were to be parachuted behind enemy lines would be sent to the No.1 Parachute Training School at RAF Ringway, which has now become Manchester Airport. When undergoing parachute training at Ringway, students did at least two jumps, one from a static balloon and one from an aircraft. They were all equipped with a little spade attached to their leg, for the purpose of burying their parachute and SOE jump suit. Unlike countries such as France which were defeated nations occupied by the Germans, the country that Scott and Thompson were operating in was member of the Axis alliance. This meant that they did not work in civilian clothes but operated openly in uniform. As a result they were dropped into the field wearing their British Army uniforms. * The Claridges team was parachuted into eastern Serbia on 7 April 1944, and crossed into Bulgaria, near Trn, in early May. Here
In March 1944, Thompson’s party ran into a Bulgarian military patrol. In the ensuing confrontation two of the team were killed, though Thompson managed to escape, revolver in hand, blazing away at the enemy. In April 1944 another attempt to organize the Bulgarian partisans (Operation Claridges) was led by Flight Lieutenant Kenneth Sayers with Sergeants Muvrin, Walker and Kenneth Scott, a member of the Royal Corps of Signals, who acted as the wireless operator. * Scott was born in Forest Hill, south-east London, brought up in Kent and educated at Dulwich College. He joined the Territorial Army in the late 1930s, and with the outbreak of war, served in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps before transferring to the Royal Signals. In 1943 he volunteered for the SOE. After selection as an SOE agent, Kenneth Scott would have undertaken an intense period of training. In Scott’s case this would have included extensive practice with a wireless set, learning how to carry out basic repairs and, in particular, in dealing with codes and security checks. Operators usually had two security checks because it was assumed that the Germans would be aware that each operator had such a facility, but it was hoped that they would not discover that they would also have a second one. When considered ready for field ABOVE: Kenneth Scott’s medal group. His award of the Distinguished Conduct Medal was gazetted on Thursday, 9 August 1945.FAR RIGHT: Sergeant Kenneth Alec John Scott DCM, Royal Corps of Signals. RIGHT: Kenneth Scott’s Royal Signals shoulder flashes. (All images courtesy of Nigel and Tony Flitter of www.militarytrader.co.uk)
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Thompson and Scott were now on the run, the situation being made worse by the fact that Thompson became ill, leaving Scott to take full responsibility for the mission. By what was described as “tact and perseverance”, Scott kept the band of partisans together. Nevertheless, on 31 May 1944, the party was attacked again and this time both Scott and Thompson were taken prisoner. Thompson, who had been wounded in the attack, was tried along with his Bulgarian co-fighters in a thirtyminute mock trial. When asked “By what right do you, an Englishman, enter our country and wage war upon us?” Thompson replied, “I came because this war is something very much deeper than a struggle of nation against nation. The greatest thing in the world now is the struggle of Fascism against Anti-Fascism”.
ABOVE: Two of the telegrams sent by SOE to Kenneth Scott’s parents in Hayes, Kent, whilst he was involved in the Claridges Mission in Bulgaria. BELOW: A supply drop over the Balkans. Such flights would have been arranged through Scott and his radio.
they joined up with Thompson’s party. On 11 May 1944, the party, along with a number of partisans (from the Second Sofia Brigade of National Liberation) was ambushed by a large body of Bulgarian gendarmerie. In the fighting the group was forced to split up and Scott and Thompson were the only British survivors. The team’s wireless was dropped into a river during the fighting and was later recovered by Sergeant Scott at great personal risk of being spotted by the enemy.
When informed of the court’s decision to execute all of his party, Thompson led them to the place of execution. The whole group raised their arms in a clenched-fist salute as they were shot by a firing squad at the nearby village of Litakovo. Scott, being the wireless operator of the group, was seen as being of considerable value and was taken to Sofia where he was interrogated and beaten by the Gestapo and the Bulgar Secret Police. He was kept imprisoned in the Bulgar Anti-Partisan Headquarters until 9 September 1944, but at no time did he reveal any details of his operation or the people involved. He was, however, forced to operate his wireless and transmit to Cairo. But Scott, showing considerable ingenuity, was able to convey in his messages that he was operating under duress by omitting his security checks and transmitting intentional errors. The staff at Cairo spotted Scott’s transmission errors and they were able to deal with his signals accordingly. This, though, entailed a game of bluff and counter-bluff which Scott undertook in the full knowledge that if the Gestapo realised what he was doing he would have most certainly been shot. As a result of his efforts, Kenneth Alex John Scott was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. His citation states: “Questioned under threats and beatings ... Sergeant Scott consistently refused to give away any vital military or technical information about our operations ... Sergeant Scott has shown considerable initiative, fortitude and steadfastness to duty and has contributed considerably to the work of the force in Bulgaria.” Finally, after three months in enemy hands, following the collapse of the Bulgarian Government, Kenneth Scott was released and repatriated back to the United Kingdom. Scott, who died on 30 September 2008, was the only British survivor of the SOE operation in Bulgaria. Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to Nigel and Tony Flitter of www.militarytrader.co.uk for their assistance in this month’s Piece of History
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WHAT THE PAPERS SAID DEFENCE
A FAMIL Y AFFAI
THE TERRITORIAL MAGAZINE June 1939 (Volume 5, No.36)
R
“Off they sons and go to the Drill Ha Manches daughter go to p ll. It is not often ter family ar th who haveades together, bu at father, two t set an ex “Mr W.E. ample. there is one CorporatiFlatters, of Moss S Corporal on Tramways D ide, employed by evening of the 125th (Ea epartment by the Manchester respectivwith his sons Robst Lancs) Field Aday, becomes a joined th ely, and his 18-y ert and Arthur, mbulance in the e affiliate e a d A.T.S. Car-old daughter Lged 16 and 20 ompany.” ilian, wh o has “There is no reason why the Territorial Army should not be as well and as smartly dressed as the Regular Army. The Admiralty manages to clothe the R.N.V.R. so that its members look and feel like sailors, but does the War Office go to the same trouble?”
BACK TO THE ARMY AGAIN
ALL ON TWO BOB A DAY?
“Captain Sir Malcolm Campbell is too well-known to need any introduction. But how many of us know that he was one of the original Despatch Riders with the British Expeditionary Force. He had seen much of the early fighting in Flanders before he returned to England and was commissioned into the 5th Territorial Battalion of the Royal West Kents.
“Many young men with family responsibilities are wondering just what they are going to do about the installments on houses, radios, Hoovers, and prams – not to mention details such as the rates, the gas bill, the baker and the milkman, if the T.A. was to be suddenly embodied, as it is going to be, in the anti-aircraft units.
“He was one of the pioneers of flying, which he commenced as a hobby in 1909, and in consequence of his experience transferred in 1916 to the Royal Flying Corps, serving continuously until the end of the war.
“An income which consists only of Army pay won’t go very far towards all this, and we urge all the T.A. Associations to keep the question of a Treasury insurance scheme, to safeguard the position of all territorial soldiers, right in the forefront of their major considerations.
“Now, Sir Malcolm is back with the T.A., having recently been gazetted to the Command of the London Divisional Provost Company. The complete mechanisation of the Army has given rise to this new type of T.A. unit – the ‘Military Traffic Cops’ – and its duties in war would be to control the vast movements in military traffic throughout the division.”
“The Admiralty and the Air Ministry are equally concerned. Employers are doing splendidly, and the number which have granted a fortnight’s holiday on full pay as well as a fortnight in camp is remarkable.”
BELOW: A map showing the locations of the 100 Territorial Army annual training camps in the summer of 1939.
EME ER EXTR
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THE OTH
A MILLION NEW SUITS “Orders for millions of khaki drill uniforms, shirts, socks and boots, are now being placed with manufacturers all over Great Britain. Is this not the moment for Commanding Officers to band themselves together and demand to know what shape and form these garments are going to take? Unless quick action is adopted, we shall have uniforms which are not uniform: we shall have small men wearing outsizes, and tall men bursting their buttons.
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DATES THAT SHAPED THE WAR: JANUARY 1941
Seventy years on we chart some of the key moments and events of the Second World War.
THURSDAY, 2 JANUARY 1941 By virtue of its docks – which during the war were one the most important coal ports in the world – was Cardiff repeatedly targeted by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz. One of the most devastating attacks on the city came on the night of 2 January 1941, when both Cardiff and Swansea were bombed. In the raid on the former, one of the most important buildings damaged was Llandaff Cathedral – the shattered nave of which is seen here in the harsh light of dawn the following morning. The damage, predominantly the result of a landmine explosion, included the roof being blown off the nave, south aisle and chapter house. Of the British cathedrals, only that in Coventry would suffer worse damage during the war. (Mirrorpix)
Wednesday, 1st HM Ships Duncan, Foxhound, Hero, Jaguar, and Firedrake participated in Operation Ration – the interception of a convoy of four Vichy French merchant ships outside of Spanish territorial waters off Cape Tres Forcas. Some of the vessels were later escorted to Gibraltar. Thursday, 2nd The “Twenty Committee”, formed to co-ordinate the activities of German double agents based in Britain and who had been captured or who had turned themselves in, met for the first time. Friday, 3rd
Tuesday, 14th Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food, fixed the prices of twenty-one foodstuffs to the level at which they stood at the beginning of December 1940. The controls applied to products such as chicken, coffee, cocoa, honey, tinned food, meat paste, rice and pasta, pickles and sauces, jellies and custard, biscuits, nuts and processed cheese. Thursday, 16th The first attacks upon Malta by the Luftwaffe’s X Fliegerkorps took place. In successive waves eighty Junkers Ju 87 Stukas hit Valetta harbour. They caused major damage to the port installations, though their principal target, HMS Illustrious, was hit by only one bomb. Friday, 17th
As he undertook a tour of the civil defence services in Glasgow, Winston Churchill made a speech in the presence of Roosevelt’s personal envoy, Harry Hopkins: “We don’t require in 1941 large armies from overseas. What we do require are weapons, ships and aeroplanes. All that we can pay for we will pay for, but we require far more than we shall be able to pay for ...”
Sunday, 20th
Fire-watching became compulsory as part of Britain’s latest round of Defence Regulations. Under these, men and women aged between 16 and 60 were obliged to register for part-time Civil Defence service.
Wednesday, 23rd Oberleutant Franz von Werra escaped from a train which was taking him from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the ship bringing him to Canada from the UK had docked, to a PoW camp at Neys, Ontario. He managed to cross the St Lawrence River into neutral America and became the only German PoW to escape in Canada and make it back to Germany. Friday, 25th
The first medal of the war awarded to an animal went to Chum the Airedale. He was awarded the Bravery Medal of Our Dumb Friends’ League for saving the life of Mrs Marjorie French of Purley. Mrs French was trapped in an air-raid shelter after her home had been destroyed by a bomb. When he had cleared a large enough opening, Chum seized Mrs French by the hair and dragged her to safety.
Monday, 28th
For the first time in history, senior US and British military staff officers met in secret to hammer out a common strategy in case the United States found itself at war with Germany and/or Japan in alliance with Britain.
Tuesday, 29th The government started installing 600,000 bunks in public air-raid shelters – 22,000 of them in the Tube stations. Regular “shelterers” were to be given a ticket for a specific bunk. Sanitary facilities were also to be provided and the larger shelters were to issue snacks. There were food trains which ran from station to station each evening and early in the morning. Some shelters were run by marshals or voluntary committees, which expelled “undesirables”.
Midshipman Prince Philip of Greece joined the battleship HMS Valiant. Prince Philip was the son of Prince Andrew of Greece and of Princess Alice of Battenberg (Mountbatten). When Philip became a naturalized British citizen (during the war), he took his mother’s family name. Philip was fifth in the line of succession for the Greek throne. • British and Commonwealth forces attacked the Italian fortress of Bardia in Libya as part of Operation Compass. The Australian 6th Division was engaged in the attack, marking the first large-scale operation of the war involving Australian troops.
Sunday, 5th
First Officer Amy Johnson CBE, the airwoman who made flying history with her 10,000 mile solo flight to Australia ten years previously, died when the aircraft she was ferrying for the Air Transport Auxiliary crashed into the Thames Estuary. There was no enemy air activity at the time, and it is thought that 37-year-old Miss Johnson lost her way in the bad weather conditions and ran out of fuel. Her body was never recovered and she is commemorated on the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede.
Thursday, 9th
The Avro Manchester III (subsequently put into production as the Lancaster) made its first flight at Ringway Airport, Manchester, whilst fitted with four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines in place of the two RollsRoyce Vultures used on earlier marks. As the Avro chief test pilot, Sydney “Bill” Thorn, took the ’plane into the air, the managing director, Sir Roy Dobson, turned to the designer Roy Chadwick and said: “Oh boy, oh boy ... what an aeroplane! What a piece of aeroplane!”
Friday, 10th
The RAF begins Circus operations – coordinated bomber and fighter attacks on targets in northern France. Six Blenheims, escorted by Spitfires and Hurricanes, attacked supply dumps south of Calais.
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MONDAY, 21 JANUARY 1941 British and Commonwealth forces, primarily the Australian 6th Division, began their assault upon the Italian-garrisoned port of Tobruk. The results were impressive. The Italian army was unable to put up an effective resistance: its commander was taken prisoner after just twelve hours of fighting, and a further twenty-four hours later the Australian troops had eliminated remaining resistance. Australian casualties were some forty-nine dead and 306 wounded; they captured approximately 27,000 Italian PoWs, 208 guns, twentyeight tanks, numerous trucks and a large quantity of stores. Here British artillery is pictured in action during a bombardment of the port and its environs on the 20th. (Mirrorpix)
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THE DUSTY ARCHIVE
Containing 900 years of history, the National Archives is the United Kingdom’s official government archive. In this month’s “Dusty Archive” we discover the moving story contained within the covers of just one of the many thousands of files held at Kew.
ESCAPE IN AN AMBULANCE The Remarkable Story of how an RAF Fairey Battle crew Escaped From German-held Territory in 1940 in the Back of an Ambulance driven by Female Volunteers The very first official RAF escapers of the Second World War owed their astonishing escape to the quick-thinking and courage of three remarkable young women in the summer of 1940. Acting Flight Lieutenant Frederick Oliver “Barry” Barrett was pilot of a 226 Squadron Fairey Battle which formed part of the BEF’s Advanced Air Striking Force sent to France in 1939. At around 19.00 hours on the evening of 13 May 1940, Barratt’s ’plane was amongst half-a-dozen Battles that were despatched to try and halt an advance by large numbers of German tanks that had been seen refuelling in the Forêt du Gault, south-east of Montmirail and some fifty-five miles due east of Paris.
with the Château de Blois Ambulance Corps which had five ambulances given to the French by American donors in Palm Beach. The Château de Blois Ambulance Corps was part of a group d’ambulance corps d’armée which consisted of thirteen surgeons and doctors, eight trained nurses, and fifty-five men and women (cooks, stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers). >>>
Barrett came under heavy anti-aircraft fire when he was some fifteen miles short of his target. Then, with nine miles to go, a pair of Messerschmitt Bf 109s attacked. One of the German fighters closed to within fifty yards. Barrett’s crew managed to shoot down one of the German fighters but the other hit the Battle, wounding Barrett in the right arm. To make matters worse, the Battle was then hit by ground fire. Barrett continued to fly on until the Battle’s engine stopped and he was forced to make a wheels-up landing. Though Barrett was injured both his Observer, Sergeant Asker, and Air Gunner, Leading Aircraftsman Kirk, survived unhurt from both the combat and the forcedlanding. Having put down near a French army column, the three airmen were picked up by French infantry who dressed Barrett’s wound and sent all three men to a military hospital at nearby Provins. At one o’clock the next morning, as soon as Barrett’s right arm had been operated on, the three men were put into an ambulance driven by Miss Penelope Otto, with the assistance of Miss Ursula Lloyd Bennet. The women were members of the British Mechanised Transport Corps, a uniformed civilian organisation which provided drivers for government departments and other agencies during the Second World War. At the time they conveyed Barrett and his crew, Otto and Bennet were serving
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ABOVE: An air-to-air shot of Fairey Battles from 15 Squadron. The squadron arrived in France in September 1939 as part of the Advanced Air Striking Force’s No.71 Wing, before returning in December to re-equip with Blenheims. BELOW: An unidentified crash-landed Fairey Battle. During the German invasion on 10 May 1940, the Battle crews were ordered to attack bridges and communication targets at low-level in a vain attempt to halt the Blitzkrieg. They perished in droves. Of thirty-two that went into action on the first day, for example, thirteen were lost and the remainder severely damaged. (All images courtesy of Chris Goss)
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This included a surgical field ambulance which often was the first surgical assistance that the wounded in France received behind the front line. As the Germans advanced rapidly towards Paris the Château de Blois Ambulance Corps was sent to the sanatorium at Villiers-sur-Marne which had been taken over as an evacuation hospital. There they were tasked with helping move the wounded southwards away from the fighting. Another volunteer, Marjorie Juta, described the scene at Villiers in her diary: “... streams of refugees, camions, ambulances, carts, ‘75’ guns, horses, artillery, foot soldiers, stragglers, old men pushing wheelbarrows have gone by in an endless stream of chaos ... mules and horses, little children, old women driving their cows, pathetic household bundles of refugees, fowls in crates and panting Alsatian dogs pulling perambulators.
French counterattack; it was duly sent back to the “smoking ruins” of Villenauxe by the Germans. Majorie Juta was at the wheel of the ambulance behind Otto’s, which still contained the three airmen: “The convoy was halted and told to turn round. In the confusion we made a dash for it”. As the convoy was directed to turn left, Penelope Otto turned right, followed by the ambulance driven by Marjorie Juta. “We simply drove straight on at high speed. We passed through German columns of tanks, transporting machine-guns mounted on armoured cars. No-one opened fire. We saw guns and tanks placed in cornfields at intervals. We continued on very fast.” The two ambulances rushed on as fast as they could drive through enemy-held territory until they reached French lines and safety at Provins. “We congratulated each other wildly and were overwhelmed with joy to be free.” They were the only two ambulances out of the fifteen of the Château de Blois Ambulance Corps to escape. Barrett and his crew were left at the hospital in Provins and the ambulances continued on to their Headquarters at St Valérien, south of Paris. Barrett was later evacuated from France, by sea from La Baule, whilst Asker and Kirk rejoined their squadron. The women later took their vehicles to Bordeaux and then on to Arcachon. It was from here that they were evacuated on board the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Galatea on 21 June 1940. On that day Marjorie Juta made the last entry in her diary: “We hope to re-assemble somewhere else later on, where there is work to do. Let us hope we find some sphere of usefulness again.” For his part, Barrett subsequently returned to operational duties, including flying Mosquitoes with
“We have chatted with soldiers, learnt of the lack of aeroplanes - fantastic tales of bombing and machine-gunning. We are in the midst of an Army in retreat.” The ambulance corps moved on through the struggling mass of citizens and defeated soldiers and eventually arrived at Provins, where the vehicle driven by Penelope Otto picked up Barrett and his two crew men. The convoy then set off for a hospital at Auxerre. The ambulances were advised to try the Nogent road but soon ran into German motorised forces near Villenauxe and were captured. As the Germans began inspecting the ambulances the quick-thinking girls told the unwounded Asker and Kirk to take off their coats, cover themselves in bandages and pretend to be concussed. They were all kept in the ambulance overnight while the Germans destroyed the nearby railway line to the town of Nogent-sur-Seine. At dawn the girls were “courteously” interrogated and then sent in an armed convoy for St Quentin. Marjorie Juta was now able to see the Germans at close quarters for the first time: “As we moved along we saw caterpillar wheeled charabancs moving up with the men sitting with folded arms. All were young, fit, blonde. All seemed uncannily well. There was no straggling mass of weary footsore men ... They smiled and tried to fraternise; we were aloof. My desire to shoot a German abated. They were just young human creatures ... I threw my revolver away.” Marjorie Juta’s view of the Germans is in marked contrast to her opinion of some of the French whom she considered were “the most dirty and degenerate [people] I have ever had anything to do with.” In the Troyes district the convoy was turned back due to an expected
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613 (City of Manchester) Squadron in 1944. He eventually retired from the RAF in 1973 with the rank of Air Commodore and having been awarded the DFC and made a Commander of the British Empire. • Miss Marjorie Juta’s story, a typescript manuscript entitled “A Fortnight in the Battle for France”, can be found in the series of documents under the reference WO 208/3298.
ABOVE LEFT: German troops pictured inspecting an unidentified Battle during the Fall of France. ABOVE: Another Battle loss during the Fall of France. This is the tail of 88 Squadron’s Mk.I L5334 at Beaurepaire, thirty miles north of Paris, on 12 June 1940. The aircraft was lost during an attack on the pontoon bridges and German troop concentrations at Pont Pointe near St. Valery. The two crew, 22-year-old Flight Lieutenant Alan Pitfield DFC (the pilot) and 23-year-old Sergeant John Ballantyne, were both killed.
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THE HUNT FOR L48 On 19 January 1915, Great Yarmouth became the first British town to be bombed from the air by a Zeppelin. East Anglia would continue to suffer aerial attacks until the last months of the First World War, though many of the enemy airships were shot down. Robert Mitchell and Julian Evan-Hart relive the final moments of one of these – Zeppelin L48 – and relate the efforts of archaeologists to uncover the airship’s buried remains.
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t around 03.30 hours on the morning of 17 June 1917, a German Zeppelin crashed just outside the small village of Theberton near Leiston in Suffolk. As it descended the glow in the sky could be seen for miles around, some accounts state up to a distance of fifty miles. This was Zeppelin L48. She was an example of the new “Height Climber” Zeppelins where everything possible, including most or all of the armament, had been stripped back to increase operational altitude. She was on her first mission.1 Being part of a force of four airships sent to attack London that night, L48 had earlier approached the English coast at a height of 13,000 feet. She was commanded by Kapitänleutnant Franz Georg Eichler, but also on board that night was Korvettenkapitän Viktor Schütze who was Kommodore of the North Sea Airship Division. By about 02.00 hours, the U-class Zeppelin was drifting slowly over
Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast. From Orford Ness the airship then rounded Wickham Market. At this point, Leutnant zur See Otto Mieth took charge of the bombing run. Communicating the order for the bomb traps to be opened via a speaking tube, he unleashed a series of nine bombs on the village of Falkenham, some five miles northeast of Harwich. L48 then turned west
and north, unloaded thirteen bombs on the fields around the village of Kirton, before dropping the last of its bombs on Martlesham which is close to Ipswich. Once the bombs had been released the ship’s crew believed they were heading East back for home. At this stage the airship was flying at over 13,000 feet. However, the compass had frozen and was giving an incorrect reading. Instead of heading east as planned L48 was now heading north along the Suffolk coast.
MAIN PICTURE:
Zeppelin L48 under attack in the skies over Suffolk on the night of 16-17 June 1917. (Artwork by Jon Wilkinson; Courtesy of Pen & Sword Books, www.pen-and-sword.com)
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Within a few minutes the Germans realised their mistake but valuable time had been lost and to add to their problems the forward engine failed. Gradually, the Zeppelin’s speed began to diminish. At this point anti-aircraft guns that were located both on coastal emplacements and on several ships out at sea opened fire. Searchlights flicked on and wavered about the sky, searching out the intruder. Finally the fingers of light homed in on L48, seemingly supporting her in the night sky.
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These were dangerous moments for the Zeppelin’s crew. With their airship held in searchlights the anti-aircraft fire could be directed far more accurately, and any night-flying defence fighters would see the Zeppelin from up to forty miles away in the right weather conditions. In fact a number of pilots and crews, patrolling the area, had indeed spotted her by virtue of the
LEFT: searchlights and through the bursts of the anti-aircraft shells. In the dark, the hunt was on for L48. * In an effort to regain the airship’s bearings and to get a weather update, Mieth made radio contact with the ground station at Nordholz, north of Bremerhaven. He learnt that there was a favourable tailwind at 11,000 feet and the airship was instructed to descend to that height. This move to a lower altitude might also have the effect of thawing out the compass. The airship had lost time travelling in the wrong direction and had now lost speed and height. It had become a very inviting target. Flying a Royal Aircraft Factory BE2c (serial A8896) from the RFC’s Armament Experimental Station at Orford Ness, Second Lieutenant E.W. Clarke was the first pilot to find the airship. Flying close to the slowmoving Zeppelin he opened fire, discharging a total of four drums of Lewis gun ammunition – but all with no apparent effect. The second aeroplane to attack, at almost the same time, was a Royal Aircraft Factory FE2b (B401). Crewed by Second Lieutenant Frank D. Holder (Pilot) and Sergeant Sidney Ashby, this aircraft had taken off from Orford Ness just after Clarke’s. This crew also
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A view of Zeppelin L48 in flight. One of the so-called “Height Climber” Zeppelins, her size was immense having a total capacity volume of 55,800 square metres and an overall length of 196.5 metres. These machines proved capable of very great altitudes, with L55 achieving a record height for a dirigible of 24,000 feet on her way back from a bombing raid on 19 October 1917. (IWM Q58467)
BELOW LEFT:
Kapitänleutnant Franz Georg Eichler, the commander of L48, seen here in the centre, with colleagues from the Naval Airship Division. L48 was the ninety-fifth airship off the Zeppelin production line and would have been designated LZ 95 (LZ = Luft Zeppelin). However it was commonplace for the German Navy to acquire such ships and then redesignate them with the number according to the delivery schedule. Therefore LZ95 was the German Navy’s forty-eighth Zeppelin and so became the L48 (Courtesy of Pen & Sword Books)
BELOW:
The skeleton of the crashed airship surrounded by sightseers. (Courtesy of Pen & Sword Books)
fired four drums of Lewis ammunition along with a further thirty rounds from a fifth drum when their machine-gun suddenly jammed. Up to this moment they had seen their tracers crossing through the dark night sky only to be frustratingly absorbed into the giant shape of the invader. Hundreds of bullets had pierced the thin fabric envelope, punching ragged
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At the same time, some bullets would probably have passed straight through the airship having hit nothing that impeded their progress. These might have passed out of the other side, leaving smouldering-edged small splits or tattered exit holes in the taught fabric. However Holder and Ashby had finally achieved some success. It could be seen now that a small fire had started in the stern end very near the tail, a small glow initially, but one that slowly gained in size. Captain Robert Henry Saundby, flying an Airco DH2 (A5058), also engaged the Zeppelin and managed to fire two-and-a-half drums at the target. By now a large blaze in the rear section of the airship was apparent.2 L48’s tail section then began to take on the classic “Chinese Lantern” effect as it was illuminated from within. Loose gas had ignited and within seconds there were several huge white incandescent fireballs as the punctured gas cells exploded. Flames now streaked up the sides of the giant airship.
Massive sheets of highly-doped fabric were ripped apart and, in a series of blinding flashes, were blasted outwards into the night sky. These flaming tatters were soon consumed leaving numerous smoke trails in the cool night air. Millions of tiny greasy black smuts were created from the burning fabric, and these fell for miles around over the surrounding countryside. As the airship fell it was finally chased by Second Lieutenant Loudon Pierce Watkins flying a Royal Aircraft Factory BE12 (6610) from ‘A’ Flight, 37 (Home Defence) Squadron based at RFC Goldhanger in Essex. He was flying at 11,000 feet over Harwich when he saw the anti-aircraft guns begin to fire and several searchlights cast their beams upon the huge airship. A minute later, as he pulled back the control stick to ascend, he saw the airship pass about 2,000 feet above him. He climbed higher and fired another two drums from a distance of 2,000 down to 1,000 feet, and then another from 500 feet. It was Watkins who would be credited with the final “kill” of L48. * As L48 fell in flames she nosed downwards and then for the last few thousand feet she would slowly assume a tilted-up angle as
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little holes in the aluminium framework. Some had also pierced the Zeppelin’s highly volatile gas cells, possibly killing or injuring a number of crew members.
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Personnel from the Royal Naval Air Service begin the task of dismantling the wreckage. (Courtesy of Pen & Sword Books)
ABOVE:
Some of the artefacts recovered in the 2006 investigation of L48’s crash site. Amongst these copper alloy remains we can see piping, eyelets and loops from the fabric – even a tiny key escutcheon, possibly from a map box or a personal locker. (Courtesy of David Stuckey and Julian Evan-Hart)
BELOW:
The remains of a gondola and engine parts from L48 being guarded at the crash site. Amongst those who formed the cordons around the wreckage or assisted with the guard were troops from the 2/25th (Cyclists) Battalion London Regiment, 2/5th Cheshire Regiment, and the 1/6th (Cyclists) Battalion Suffolk Regiment. (Courtesy of Pen & Sword Books)
the stern section became less airworthy and lost both its gas and supporting envelope fabric. The envelope fabric at the front of the structure slowed the descent by acting like a parachute canopy. Now ablaze and falling, the inner structure could be seen as more burning fabric fell away. Stunned by the drama unfolding
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around him, Mieth heard Korvettenkapitän Schütze, who was in the gondola, shout out that the airship was crashing in flames. Mieth immediately threw off his overcoat, calling for the others to do the same. He, like all the crew, believed they were over the sea, and would shortly be swimming for their lives and the heavy coats would drag them down. At this point, Schütze clutched the edge of the map table in terror as he heard hideous screams and cries from the burning sections of the airship. To add to their terror those still alive would quickly experience the sharp acrid fumes of burning richly-doped fabric and scorched metal. This was also combined with the telltale stench of burning bodies as fellow crew members were consumed in the blaze. Schütze turned to Mieth and said: “It’s all over”. Five crew members decided to jump. Eichler, Obermaschinistenmaat Herman von Stockum, Obermatrose Paul Suchlich, Obermaschinistenmaat Wilhelm Glöckel, and Signalmaat Heinrich Herbst all dropped through the night sky and were killed when they impacted the ground in a line south of the main wreckage.
L48 was falling towards the fields of Holly Tree Farm. The farmer, Mr H. Staulkey, and his wife had been awakened by the noise of the firing and the exploding fuel tank of the airship. In a state of alarm, both had watched from their bedroom window as the blazing hulk of the Zeppelin passed overhead and came to earth in one of their fields less than a quarter of a mile away. Both dressed quickly. Pulling on his work clothes and donning a jacket, hat and leggings, Staulkey set off across the fields. His wife opted to remain in the house but soon found herself kept busy entertaining the numerous visitors, military and civilian, that began to pour into the site, providing well water for those who had built up a thirst in the process. The whole of L48’s airframe began to collapse in the middle forming a “V” shape, whilst large swirling pieces of detached and burning fabric marked its final path through the night time Suffolk sky. Eventually the stern crashed into the ground at a 60-degree angle compacting and buckling as it sent up a huge shower of sparks and flaming fabric shreds.
ABOVE LEFT:
A substantial section of L48’s airframe which was “souvenired” in 1917. (Courtesy of David Stuckey and Julian Evan-Hart)
ABOVE:
A small cross fashioned from a piece of wreckage from L48. Pieces of the airship’s wreckage are also known to have been fashioned into objects such as napkin rings, paper knives, ashtrays, brooches and medallions. Often stamped with the Zeppelin’s number, as is the case here, such items were eagerly sought after at the time and many survive to this day. (HMP)
BELOW:
The main investigation at Zeppelin Field gets underway. (Courtesy of David Stuckey and Julian Evan-Hart)
The remaining gas in the bow section was forced out and erupted into a huge fireball. The angle of the impact smashed the rear section of the main gondola. Heavier parts of the airship, such as the engines, were snapped from their mountings and crashed down through the burning superstructure into the soft sandy soil of Holly Tree Farm. The catastrophic descent had taken about seven terrible minutes. As the engines fell through the collapsing structure of hot metal the massive rotating wooden propeller blades caused flurries of sparks and debris to rise up until each blade splintered and shattered against something more resistant.
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The massive fireball that was L48 seemed to wobble as it slowly descended, emitting both a roaring crackling sound as well as the whistle and shriek of wind rushing through the uncovered airframe sections. One of the
remaining fuel tanks fell away from the ship, exploding loudly as it hit the ground, blasting a large crater and shooting flames high into the sky above the village of Theberton.
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This is almost certainly one of the British 0.303-inch bullets that helped to bring down L48 nearly a century ago. (Courtesy of David Stuckey and Julian Evan-Hart)
35mm
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A glove belonging to one of the airship’s crew, now displayed in the Leiston Long Shop Museum. (Courtesy of Pen & Sword Books)
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me through the shattered wreckage. I was trapped in a tangle of red-hot girders, the heat roasting me alive …”3 Incredibly, Ellerkamm was able to free himself from the wreckage and survived the crash. Otto Mieth, both of his legs broken, was pulled free by civilians, as was the badlyinjured Maschinistenmaat Wilhelm Uecker who was discovered in the remains of the starboard gondola.
The nose of the airship as seen from one of the lanes close to the crash site. (HMP)
The already bullet-riddled and heatweakened airframe of L48 began to collapse. Rivets were bursting out from joints, sheet metal sections crimping and tearing apart as they were being compressed downwards. As the three surviving crewmen could watch as the flames shot upwards and consumed all the envelope fabric from the nose section.
“Suddenly there was a terrible, continuous roaring smashing of metal as the stern struck the ground and the hull structure collapsed beneath me,” recalled Maschinistenmaat Heinrich Ellerkamm. “I found myself on the ground with the breath knocked out of me, the framework crashing down on top of me, fuel and oil tanks bursting on impact and their burning contents flowing towards
The heat was so intense that the metal covering of the gondola they had been in a few seconds before (and that their colleagues were still in) was now beginning to melt. White hot globules of metal dripped down making a “zip zip” noise and crackling violently as they hit the dry sandy soil. If there was still anyone else alive within the gondola area at this time, they were certainly destined to die. In fact, it would soon be established
ABOVE FAR RIGHT:
Extreme close up of 0.303-inch bullet tip showing impact strike damage. (Courtesy of David Stuckey and Julian Evan-Hart)
that Ellerkamm, Mieth, and Uecker were the only survivors.4 As the minutes ticked by, the orange glow of the burning Zeppelin lit up the Suffolk sky, once again visible for many miles. It was also visible to the crew of L42, one of the three other airships which had accompanied L48 on the raid that night, who radioed the loss of their sister ship to Nordholz. * The clear-up operations were difficult due to the sheer mass and complexity of the wreckage. Some of the burned bodies lay trapped beneath wreckage for several days, and the whole task took many weeks to complete. Some of the heavier buried sections required more effort to extract them from where they had embedded themselves in the sand. In all sixteen bodies were recovered in various stages of heat subjection, the more severe were almost carbonized. The crash site was soon secured by the military and, when it looked like thunderstorms were likely to flatten the framework, scaffolding was brought in to shore up the nose of the airship on 18 June. Admiralty technicians from the Construction Department of the Pulham Air Station in Norfolk arrived that
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same day and were particularly interested in the design of the Zeppelin as this was the first of the new Height Climbers to have fallen into their hands. Each component part was carefully examined and measured. Eventually, with the end of the removal of the wreckage, the land at Holly Tree Farm, which predictably became known locally as “Zeppelin Field”, returned to nature and Theberton settled down to a quieter life. Then, in 2006, a group of archaeologists decided to hunt for any remains of L48. * On 14 April 2006, a small team from The Great War Archaeology Group arrived at Zeppelin Field, which is now owned and managed by Theberton Hall Farm, with metal detector in hand. Little had really changed in the passing ninety years since L48 drifted down in flames; apart from the grubbing out of one hedgerow and the fact that the surrounding trees were now far more mature. One tree was still clearly identifiable on the site when compared to the photographs taken in 1917. This was an oak tree with a mushroomshaped canopy which stood on the southern side of the field where L48 came to rest. The field itself is of a “D”-shaped configuration, and once had a middle hedge against which the wreckage lay (this is the hedge that
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12A has since been removed). The soil is typical to the district with sandy friable texture with masses of flint bearing regions. Sandy acidic soils are normally poor preservers of aluminium alloys. H o w e v e r , sandy soils do have a slight counteractive advantage over some soils in that moisture and agro-chemicals leach away far faster. To the team’s delight numerous aluminium structural fragments, as well as electrical chrome-plated copper alloy items, were recovered. Due to the consistency of the soil and the evidence from 1917-dated photographs it was believed that there was great potential for buried remains to still be present on the site. It was known, for example, that the Zeppelin’s engines appeared to have been buried some four feet down in the soil during the impact, and it was hoped that sections of shattered casing and other fragments would have remained in
situ when the engines were extracted during the war. Surprisingly surface debris could still be found extending over an area of some twenty-five yards. In the middle of this defined area the metal detectors were continually registering targets. Two objects of much interest were recovered and recorded during this survey. The first was a fired British 0.303-inch round. It was located right in the centre of the impact point of L48, still with a tiny globule of oncemolten aluminium adhering to it. It seems more than likely that this came down in the wreckage and can be attributed to one of the airborne attackers.
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The other item was a battered button from a tunic belonging to one of the Zeppelin crew. Once cleaned, it was found to still retain its fixing loop and around the back section the
.... ABOVE LEFT:
Close up of the frontal design, showing the anchor motif of the Imperial German Navy, on one of the buttons recovered at the crash site in 2006. (Courtesy of David Stuckey and Julian Evan-Hart)
ABOVE:
Julian Evan-Hart describes one of the uncovered artefacts to the BBC film crew. (Courtesy of David Stuckey and Julian Evan-Hart)
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A group of aluminium artefacts unearthed during the excavation – including what is believed to be a fragment of gondola skinning and a selection of “geodetic” airframe pieces. Interestingly, the small tubular object seen top right is stamped “Dunlop”. (Courtesy of David Stuckey and Julian Evan-Hart)
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The bodies of the members of L48’s crew who were killed in the crash were initially laid out in the field just beneath the towering marrowshaped superstructure of the airship’s nose section. Shortly afterwards, the sixteen men were buried in St Peters Church at Theberton. Then, in the mid 1960s, their remains were exhumed and re-interred at the German war graves cemetery at Cannock Chase in Staffordshire. This memorial stone marks the lasting resting place of these men. The inscription reads: “Side by side with their comrades the crews of four Zeppelins shot down over England during the First World War here found their eternal resting place. The fallen were brought here from their original burial places at Potters Bar, Great Burstead and Theberton. The members of each crew are buried in caskets in one grave.” (Courtesy of Gordon Cragg, www.geograph.org.uk)
BELOW:
The wreckage from L48 at Leiston Railway Station awaiting onward transportation. (Courtesy of Pen & Sword Books)
words “Extra Fein” could be read.
Five days later the excavation proper got underway. This involved removing approximately three inches of topsoil from an area some 200 square yards in size. A film crew from the BBC’s Timewatch were joined by local press and radio reporters – they were all there to watch the first-ever excavation of a Zeppelin crash site. On the first day the main artefacts recovered were globules of once-molten aluminium, twisted and crumpled sheeting, copper alloy fasteners and electrical fittings, eyelets and the ever present powdery traces of blue/ white aluminium oxide. The dig continued throughout the following two days, resulting in a large range of small items being uncovered. At 18.30 hours on Wednesday 28 June, the crews packed up and left Zeppelin Field, the crash site of the last German Zeppelin to be brought down on British soil, to its memories. n
ZEPPELIN OVER SUFFOLK The Final Raid of the L48
Much of the information used in this account has been taken from Mark Mower’s Zeppelin Over Suffolk. In this book, the author reconstructs the events of that night in June 1917, from the time when Zeppelin L48 took off from northern Germany to its final moments as it fell to earth in flames near the village of Theberton. The key participants involved in the event, both German and Allied, are examined. Mark Mower also records the aftermath of the loss of this airship – the crash site, the sight-seers, the crew members who survived, and the significance of the episode in the history of aerial bombing. For more information on this title or to order your copy, please visit: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk
NOTES:
1. Whilst this was the first operational sortie for L48, most of her crew had previously served together, first in L11, undertaking some eleven missions, and then in L36. 2. Two weeks after the engagement, Saundby was awarded the Military Cross for his part in this action. He retired from the RAF in 1946 with the rank of Air Vice Marshall. Watkins also received the MC. Following these awards, a further announcement was made on 7 August 1917, in which Holder was granted the MC and Ashby the Military Medal. 3. R.L. Rimell, The Last Flight of the L48, (Albatross Productions Ltd, Berkhamstead, 2006), p.18. 4. Whilst he had survived the crash, Uecker’s burns and internal injuries were so severe that he did not live to see his native Germany, succumbing to his wounds, exacerbated by Influenza, on 11 November 1918, Armistice Day.
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Hopes were therefore high of making significant discoveries and with the
agreement of all parties the initial excavation was planned for Wednesday, 21 June 2006. The BBC was interested in filming the principal excavation and representatives from the organisation were present.
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THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME ... 710 2 20
acres – roughly the total area captured by the 34th Division on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. Consisting of the Tyneside Irish and two Tyneside Scottish brigades, this division suffered the worst on 1 July, losing a grisly three-quarters of all its infantry, some 6,380 men, in total.
the number of British casualties suffered for each yard of the sixteen mile front between Gommecourt in the north and Montauban in the south on the first day of the battle.
100
the number of casualties of all sides who died for every single yard during the entire five months of the battle.
51
number of VCs awarded during the offensive; 14 were posthumous. Of this number, 9 were for actions that took place on the opening day of the offensive.
57,470
the number of casualties on the first day of the battle – Saturday, 1 July 1916. Of this number, 19,240 were killed, 35,493 wounded, and 585 taken prisoner of war. The remaining 2,152 are listed as “missing”. This figure is roughly the equivalent of seventy-five battalions. Over twenty men were killed for every minute of that fateful summer’s day.
782
the number of Royal Flying Corps aircraft lost during the battle – 576 of the pilots were killed.
31/08/1916
the date that the first American was reputedly killed on the Western Front whilst serving in the British Army. An American who hailed from San Francisco, Second Lieutenant Harry A. Butters was serving in “B” Battery, 109th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, at the time of his death.
75%
the approximate casualty rate for officers on 1 July 1916 – only one in four of the officers who had gone over the top remained unhurt at the end of the day. Proportionately, the most dangerous rank to have held that day was that of Captain; the least dangerous was that of the private soldier.
616
the number of individual British infantry battalions that participated in the battle.
Shrapnel shells bursting over Commonwealth troops sheltering in a reserve trench during the Battle of the Somme. (Mirrorpix)
the worst losses for a single British battalion, the 10th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own), on 1 July 1916.
1
the number of battalions which were unable to find an officer to make any descriptive entry in the unit’s War Diary detailing the events of 1 July 1916. This was the 1st Battalion Hampshire Regiment, whose War Diary entry for that day simply states: “Our casualties in officers amounted to 100% and was also heavy in other ranks.”
1,500,000
the approximate number of artillery shells fired by British artillery in the preliminary bombardment – exceeding the total number of shells fired by the British Army in the first twelve months of the war.
90%
roughly the casualty rate of the Newfoundland Regiment, part of the British 29th Division, on the first day of the Somme. It is stated that some 22 officers and 758 other ranks were directly involved in the advance; only about 110 had survived unscathed by the end of the day. Of this number only 68 were present at roll call the following day. For all intents and purposes the Newfoundland Regiment had been wiped out.
300
the distance in miles between the Somme battlefield and Hampstead Heath in London – where the British bombardment could be heard.
4,000 the furthest advance, in yards, achieved by British troops on the first day of the battle. Advancing south of La Boisselle, the men, a small group from the Tyneside Irish Brigade, almost reached the village of Contalmaison.
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Based on the book by Professor Hew Strachan. The complete series of the critically-acclaimed Channel 4 documentary on the First World War. Many lesser known battles, campaigns and actions are looked at as well as the well-known campaigns. Previously unseen archive materials from sources in Central and Eastern Europe are featured and studies of key participants, weaponry, diary entries and letters written by soldiers make this series truly comprehensive.
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