Britain at War Magazine 2014-02

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CHARGING THE GUNS: CAVALRY IN ACTION 1914

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BRITAIN’S BEST SELLING MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY

The Action at Elouges during the Retreat From Mons

THE AMIENS RAID THE MYTH OF THE MISSING MOSQUITO

PLUS:

Sanctuary From the Trenches, Death of a General, Kamikaze Aircraft Markings, WW1 Ship’s Bell and more…

R A IL W AY M AN ONE MAN’S JOURNEY INTO HELL

Life as a Prisoner on The Death Railway

D-DAY’S FLYING TANKS The only occasion during WW2 that large numbers of tanks were flown into battle

EPIC OF RESISTANCE

The story of an ill-fated Special Operations Executive Mission in July 1944

VICTORIA CROSS GALLANTRY 1918: PRIVATE GEORGE MASTERS

FEBRUARY 2014 ISSUE 82 £4.30

Bachmann F_P.indd 1

08/01/2014 12:44

Notes from the Dugout

www.britainatwar.com Should you wish to correspond with any of the ‘Britain at War’ team in particular, you can find them listed below: Editor: Martin Mace Assistant Editor: John Grehan Editorial Consultant: Mark Khan Editorial Correspondent: Geoff Simpson Australasia Correspondent: Ken Wright Design: Dan Jarman EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES: Britain at War Magazine, Green Arbor, Rectory Road, Storrington, West Sussex, RH20 4EF or email: [email protected]. ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES: For all aspects of advertising in ‘Britain at War’ Magazine please contact Jill Lunn, Advertisement Sales Manager Tel: +44 (0)1780 755131 or email: [email protected]. GENERAL ENQUIRIES: For general enquiries and advertising queries please contact the main office at: Britain at War Magazine Key Publishing Ltd PO Box 100, Stamford, Lincs, PE9 1XQ Tel: +44 (0)1780 755131 Fax: +44 (0)1780 757261 SUBSCRIPTIONS, BINDERS AND BACK ISSUES: Britain at War, Key Publishing, PO Box 300, Stamford, Lincs, PE9 1NA Email: [email protected]

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HE DUKE of Wellington once described the British cavalry as being inferior to the French because of “a want of order”. The cavalry’s problem was that it could not resist charging at every opportunity. The routine tasks of scouting and patrolling were of little interest to the British cavalry. What they relished was the glory of the charge – and the greater the odds against them, the greater the chance of glory. Nothing could epitomise this more than the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava in 1854 and the charge of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade at Elouges in August 1914. In neither case was it the intention of the person giving the orders that the cavalry would charge the enemy guns, yet off dashed the cavalry without hesitation. I have walked the fields outside Elouges and John has picked his way through the vineyards that now cover the Balaklava plain. There is surprisingly little difference in the nature of the terrain over which the two brigades charged. In both cases it is open ground and the enemy, his view unimpaired, found the cavalry an easy target. At Balaklava it was round shot and musket balls that poured into the ranks of the Light Brigade. At Elouges it was shells and bullets. In both cases the cavalry was slaughtered. In their misguided or misinterpreted way, both charges were successful. Yet one has become famous and the other has become largely forgotten. The latter, however, is the subject of one of our main articles this month – see page 28.

‘Britain at War’ Magazine is published on the last Thursday of the proceeding month by Key Publishing Ltd. ISSN 1753-3090 Printed by Warner’s (Midland) plc. Distributed by Seymour Distribution Ltd. (www.seymour.co.uk) All newsagents are able to obtain copies of ‘Britain at War’ from their regional wholesaler. If you experience difficulties in obtaining a copy please call Seymour on +44 (0)20 7429 4000. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part and in any form whatsoever, is strictly prohibited without the prior, written permission of the Editor. Whilst every care is taken with the material submitted to ‘Britain at War’ Magazine, no responsibility can be accepted for loss or damage. Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor or Key Publishing Ltd. Whilst every effort had 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. We are unable to guarantee the bonafides of any of our advertisers. Readers are strongly recommended to take their own precautions before parting with any information or item of value, including, but not limited to, money, manuscripts, photographs or personal information in response to any advertisements within this publication.

© Key Publishing Ltd. 2014

Martin Mace Editor

COVER STORY Group Captain Percy Charles Pickard DSO & Two Bars, DFC led the famous raid by Mosquitoes on Amiens prison in February 1944. He did not survive the raid, it being suggested that he had taken the risk of looking for survivors of one of the Mosquitoes that had been shot down a few moments earlier, exposing his own aircraft to enemy fighters, with fatal consequences. This is still believed today, yet it is simply not true. So what really happened on Pickard’s last flight seventy years ago this month on 18 February 1944? The full story is told on page 48. By Mark Postlethwaite GAvA, this painting, entitled Pickard’s Last Moments, depicts Group Captain Percy Pickard DSO & Two Bars, DFC trying, unsuccessfully, to shake off the Focke-Wulf Fw190 of 7/JG 26 flown by Feldwebel Wilhelm Mayer north-east of Amiens during Operation Jericho. For more information on the painting, and the prints or posters available, please visit: www.posart.com

FEBRUARY 2014

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Contents

ISSUE 82 FEBRUARY 2014

35 RAILWAYMAN: ONE MAN’S JOURNEY INTO HELL

28

42

Eric Lomax, whose memoirs, including his time on the Burma Railway, have recently been made into a film, found himself incarcerated in a Japan military prison for being part of a group using a concealed radio. Brutally beaten, half-starved and wracked with disease, Eric knew that unless he could find a way to get out of the prison he would die.

Editor’s Choice 93 D-DAY'S FLYING TANKS

On only one occasion during the Second World War were large numbers of tanks flown into battle. That occasion was the Normandy landings of June 1944.

FEATURES 28 CHARGING THE GUNS: CAVALRY IN ACTION 1914

It has been likened to the Charge of the Light Brigade. Yet the magnificent charge of the 4th Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers and 18th Hussars in August 1914 has become little more than a footnote in history.

42 DEATH OF A GENERAL

Throughout the history of warfare, senior military officers have lost their lives during wartime. As Chris Goss narrates, that it also happened numerous times during the Second World War, one such death being that of Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert, whose aircraft was shot down in 1941.

48 THE AMIENS RAID: THE MYTH OF THE MISSING MOSQUITO

Group Captain Percy Charles Pickard DSO & Two Bars, DFC led the famous raid by Mosquitoes on Amiens prison seventy years ago this month in February 1944. He did not survive the attack.

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FEBRUARY 2014

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Subscribe and Save!! Subscribe to Britain at War Magazine and make great savings on the cover price. See pages 46 and 47 for details.

“WE SHADOW ED

CHRISTMAS TRUCE 1914: “I WAS THER E”

THE BISMARC K”

Bruce Bairnsfather

Describes The Events

of 25 December 1914

BRITAIN’S BEST SELLING MILITARY R The Baedeker HISTORY MONTHLY BRITAIN’S BEST SELLING MILITARY HISTORY MONTHLY

R

e Stuka SwTh ansoHangrdest Day BLITZ

Norwich Cathedral,

The Last Dive-Bom ber Attacks on

June 1942

Britain

Battle of Britain: Low-Level Attack

PLUS

The Sinking of U-534 RAF On The Air: Squadron Leader R. “Bob” Stanford Tuck Mountain Top Great War Memorial Restored SAS Gallantry: Major John “Jim” Almonds MM & Bar Wartime Depth Charge Blown Up at Guernsey and more …

on Kenley

CHURCHILL’S

GUN BOATR AT DISA STUDLASTE ND BAY

PLUS:

“ The Re-Discovered Battle of Mons 1914, WW1 , The VC10’s Last Bomber’s Wings on Guernsey, Sunderland Flight, WW2 German Signs Flying Boat Wreckage Found found and more...

FOR VALOUR Private George

Peachment’s Victoria Cross action, 1915

Valentine Floating

Tanks Lost During

D-Day Exercise

A Remarkabl e SPITFIR First World War Survivor ES

IN ACTION

The Realities of War NOVEMBER 2013

- RAF Fighters in Combat over D-DAY Occupied Europe September 1944 on 3 DUKW S

ISSUE 79 £4.30

FILMING ON THE FRONT

DECEMBER 2013 ISSUE 80 £4.30

How An Offensive near Ypres

in 1916 The British Army’s Was Caught on REVEALED: THE amphibians in Camera GERMA action N GREAT ESCAPE on Gold BRIDGES, BELLS, Beach, 1944 , DECEMBER 1944 CLOCKS: UNUSU AL WAR MEMOR IALS

REGULARS 6 BRIEFING ROOM

News, Restorations, Discoveries and Events from around the UK.

24 FIELDPOST Your letters.

57 TANK TIMES

The latest edition of Tank Times from the Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset.

61 IMAGE OF WAR

“A Bad Day at the Office”: intercepted by Spitfires over the North African desert, 29 September 1942.

72 DATES THAT SHAPED THE WAR

We chart some of the key moments and events that affected the United Kingdom in February 1944.

101 RECONNAISSANCE REPORT A look at new books and products.

114 WHAT I WOULD SAVE IN A FIRE

Jenny Cousins, a Project Leader at IWM Duxford, explains to Geoff Simpson why she has chosen a journalist’s wartime scrapbook as the object she would save.

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54 THE RAF ON THE AIR: “I TORPEDOED THE LÜTZOW”

On 12 June 1941, a Bristol Blenheim on a reconnaissance patrol spotted four or five enemy destroyers screening a much larger vessel, the heavy cruiser Lützow, off the Norwegian coast. A “striking force” of Bristol Beauforts of 42 Squadron, and a detachment of Beauforts from 22 Squadron, was ordered to attack the German warship. One of the 42 Squadron pilots was Flight Sergeant Ray Loveitt, who subsequently described his actions during a broadcast on the BBC.

62 VICTORIA CROSS GALLANTRY 1918: PRIVATE GEORGE MASTERS

Private George Masters always reckoned that the number 9 was his lucky number. By a strange quirk of fate it was on 9 April 1918 that he found himself faced with unparalleled danger.

68 SANCTUARY FROM THE TRENCHES

In the First World War Dunham Massey became a hospital. Now a National Trust property, for the Great War centenary commemorations it will again become Stamford Military Hospital.

74 LOW-LEVEL ATTACK: OBJECTIVE KENLEY

In the Part 3 of his series of articles examining the attack on Kenley on 18 August 1940, Andy Saunders reveals how, with the bombing over and their work done, the Dornier Do 17s turned for home.

83 LORD ASHCROFT’S “HERO OF THE MONTH”

In the latest instalment in a series examining his “Hero of the Month”, Lord Ashcroft details the remarkable story of Air Vice Marshal James “Johnnie” Johnson CB, CBE, DSO & 2 Bars, DFC & Bar.

www.britainatwar.com

87 FROM PEERS TO PRIESTS

Breaking and analyzing enemy wireless messages was of crucial importance during the First World War; it was work undertaken by a highly secret group. Jane Dismore examines the brains behind Room 40.

106 EPIC OF RESISTANCE

When a French uprising was crushed in the summer of 1944 a British liaison officer was forced to make an epic escape across the Alps. Steve Snelling charts the story of the ill-fated SOE Eucalyptus Mission. FEBRUARY 2014

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BULLETIN BOARD

THOUSANDS OF damaged or weathered gravestones of British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Normandy landings during 1944 are being replaced in preparation for the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The project aims to replace 8,329 headstones in three cemeteries by the end of spring 2014. The stones have, in most cases, not been previously replaced. Staff from the CWGC began exchanging them a month ago, replacing them with marble-like stone from Botticino in Italy. The three sites are Bayeux War Cemetery (there was little actual fighting in Bayeux although it was the first French town of importance to be liberated), this being the largest British cemetery of the Second World War in France, Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian Cemetery which is just to the north of the village of Cintheaux, and Ranville War Cemetery (Ranville was the first village in France to be liberated during Operation Overlord). Following the replacement of the headstones, the CWGC will also undertake a horticultural renovation programme. A CAMPAIGN has been launched to remember nearly 150 railway workers who died during service in the First World War. The North Staffordshire Railway Study Group is appealing for information about the men honoured on a memorial at Stoke railway station as part of the commemorations marking the centenary of the start of the First World War. Members of the group are planning to put together a journal with details of the 146 men named on the two plaques mounted on columns either side of the Memorial Arch. SEVEN UNEXPLODED Second World War devices were destroyed in a controlled explosion at Westcliffon-Sea in Essex at 09.45 hours on 6 January 2014. Experts from the Southern Diving Unit’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team detonated the devices on the shoreline at the end of Cobham Road after the coastguard received a number of reports regarding the devices, believed to include unexploded shells, following their exposure by bad weather. AROUND 100 people recently gathered at a hillside memorial to commemorate six RCAF aircrew who died seventy years ago. The men were killed when their 82 OTU Vickers Wellington, Mk.III BK387, crashed in fog at the spot in Tewitt Lane, Oakworth, Keighley, West Yorkshire, on 2 January 1944, during a training flight. This is an annual event which takes place on the first Sunday in January.

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FEBRUARY 2014

News • Restorations • Discoveries • Events • Exhibitions from around the UK

Letters Reveal Channel Islander's Fear of German Invasion THE ATMOSPHERE in Jersey in the weeks before the German occupation in 1940, as well as after liberation in 1945, is described in a series of newly-published letters, reports Geoff Simpson. The correspondence was written by the Reverend George Reginald Balleine (1873-1966), then living in retirement in the parish of St Brelade and was sent to his daughter Dorothy May. She was living in Sundridge, Kent and working as an almoner at St Olave’s Hospital, Rotherhithe. The letters have been edited and annotated by Andrew Athertone and published in the annual bulletin of Societe Jersiaise. Human dramas feature strongly. On Sunday, 16 June 1940, for example, Balleine recorded that, “At eight last night I got a frantic message from Miss Colley. Could I come down to the church at once & marry her? She had got a licence but the Rector was out. She is marrying an airport pilot & he had been ordered to take his plane across last night & he thought this would be the last plane out of the island.” Balleine was reluctant to act without the Rector’s knowledge, but agreed. However, at the church, he discovered that the Rector had been located.

ABOVE: The invaders arrive, in this case on Guernsey with German personnel pictured on the island’s airfield beside the terminal building. (HMP)

A week later Balleine wrote that the service he attended in St Brelade’s church ended with the singing of God Save the King. In the same letter he noted that there had been panic on the previous Thursday (20 June 1940) at the news that the island would be surrendered, adding, on Friday, that “nerves had steadied”. The letters contain comments reflecting the author’s disquiet at what he sees as the desertion of

their posts by some clergymen and nurses who escaped to England. The last letter in 1940 was dated 27 June, four days before the arrival of the Germans. In it Balleine denies a report from London that the Jersey capital, St Helier, was in flames. In a much later message, dated 13 May 1945, four days after the arrival of British troops, he declares that, “The Union Jack has been flying from my flagstaff since Tuesday, but things are still far from normal.”

National Army Museum Grant for its Indian Army Collection THE NATIONAL Army Museum (NAM) has secured a grant of £71,292 for its Indian Army Collection in the latest round of grants from the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund (EFCF). The grant will enable the museum to research and digitise items as part of its extensive First World War commemorations programme, enabling it to better tell the story of the two-million strong volunteer

army India raised between 1914 and 1918 as well as increase access to the collection. This will complement NAM’s £23.25 million re-development project, Building for the Future. The funding will also cover the salary of a Project Officer who will be responsible for investigating and documenting the Indian Army Collection, highlights of which include uniforms and medals alongside personal papers and LEFT: Indian soldiers pictured on the Western Front during the winter of 1914-1915. One million Indian troops would serve overseas, of whom 62,000 died and another 67,000 were wounded. (US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

photographs. David Bownes, Assistant Director Collections, said: “The Museum holds a rich variety of historically and culturally significant items relating to the Indian Army before Partition in 1947. This project will make a fundamental difference to advancing our research into it and helping us share what we discover at the Museum, as well as regionally, nationally and digitally.” The NAM was one of the six cultural organisations to be awarded funding from EFCF for projects to develop their collections-based work (the Royal Armouries was another, its grant being £72,400). The fund is administrated by the Museums Association and supports timelimited collections work outside the scope of an organisation’s core resources.

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Exhibitions from around the UK • Events • Discoveries • Restorations • News

| BRIEFING ROOM

Deaths of Battle of Britain Clasp Holders LIEUTENANT COMMANDER Richard Cockburn, DSO who has died in Kent, aged 99, was the last surviving airman to have earned the Battle of Britain Clasp through service in the Fleet Air Arm, writes Geoff Simpson. In 1940 Lieutenant Cockburn was a member of 808 Naval Air Squadron (NAS), which was based at Castletown, Caithness and operated Fairey Fulmars. For a time the squadron was attached to Fighter Command. A particular duty was the defence of the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow. Before the war Richard Cockburn had graduated from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst and served as an officer in the Highland Light Infantry. He went on to join the the Royal Navy. After the Battle of Britain he continued with 808 NAS on the carrier HMS Ark Royal in the Mediterranean and flew in defence of Malta-bound convoys. He was awarded the DSO. After postings in the UK he was released from the Royal Navy in 1946. Richard Cockburn was not a member of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association and did not regard himself as one of “The Few”. He did, however, visit the

National Memorial at Capel-leFerne in 2012 and noted his name on the Christopher Foxley-Norris Memorial Wall. Two Fleet Air Arm squadrons were attached to Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, with the other being 804 NAS, flying Sea Gladiators and Martlets. Naval pilots also served on attachment with Fighter Command squadrons. Norman McHardy Brown, who died on 16 December 2013 aged 94, qualified for the Battle of Britain Clasp as a Pilot Officer with 611 and 41 Squadrons. He had joined the RAFVR to train as a pilot in August 1939. Born in Edinburgh on 27 July 1919, Norman Brown attended a local primary school and then George Heriot’s School. His pilot training included a spell at 5 FTS, Sealand, before he went to 7 OTU Hawarden to convert to Spitfires. He joined 611 Squadron on 28 September 1940 and moved to 41 Squadron at Hornchurch on 12 October. According to Men of the Battle of Britain by Kenneth G. Wynn, “Brown was one of a flight of Spitfires which overshot Hornchurch in poor visibility on November 1 (1940) and went

into the London barrage balloon area. He struck a cable, seriously damaging his aircraft. He made a forced-landing on a small piece of open ground in the built-up area of Dagenham. This incident was a contributing factor to his being posted away from the squadron in late February 1941 and discharged from the RAF in April.” Brown then worked in forestry. He continued with the Forestry Commission after the war, his career culminating in the appointment of District Commissioner for the West of Scotland.

ABOVE: Pilot Officer Norman Brown.

Devizes War Memorial is Listed

The War Memorial in Long Street, Devizes. (COURTESY OF BETTY

LONGBOTTOM, WWW.GEOGRAPH.ORG.UK)

ENGLISH HERITAGE has announced that it has given a Grade II listing to the War Memorial in the Wiltshire town of Devizes. Located near St John’s Church in Long Street, the memorial was dedicated on 13 November 1922, by the Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire, Viscount Long, to commemorate the men of Devizes and Roundway who fell in the First World War.

A report by English Heritage notes that the memorial “is a good example of a war memorial by F.W. Troup, an eminent architect of the Edwardian period, which displays interesting architectural detailing using good quality materials … It has visual group value with the neighbouring listed buildings and structures and makes a positive and important contribution to the local street scene.”

Ypres Painting Goes on Display

A LARGE and historic painting depicting wounded soldiers at Ypres during the First World War has gone on display at IWM North in Manchester. By Gilbert Rogers, Ypres, 1915 has not been on public display for ninety years. It illustrates the early work of the Royal Army Medical Corps and the British Red Cross Society during the first battle of Ypres in 1914. Rogers was the lead artist

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The impressive Ypres, 1915 by Gilbert Rogers. It had remained rolled up for many years until its restoration in the late-1980s. (IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM; ART3792)

commissioned in 1918 to produce works for the medical section of the newly formed Imperial War Museum. More than eleven feet high and fifteen feet wide, it was one of several large canvases displayed in IWM’s first home at the Crystal Palace in south London. The building was less than perfect and the painting suffered water damage from a leaky roof which ultimately led to its removal from public display.

BULLETIN BOARD

THE STORY of Hertfordshire’s First World War, from the Western Front to the Home Front, will be told thanks to a major history project made possible by a £98,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). Letchworth-based Herts at War has been formed to mastermind the project with support from Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation and local community groups, historical societies and schools. As many as 500 volunteers will be recruited to carry out research. Information held in local museums and county archives will be augmented by the memories of local people whose relatives were involved either as serving soldiers or on the Home Front. A particular task will be to investigate the names of more than 17,747 casualties listed on 742 war memorials spread around the county. In addition the project will explore the Home Front, from conscientious objectors through to German air raids and their effect on the local population. Jon Grant, Herts at War Project chairman, said: “With the support of the HLF we will be able to mark the centenary in a very personalised way; by local people, for local people.” For more information, please visit: www.hertsatwar.co.uk A GERMAN 1kg incendiary bomb was found under the floorboards of a home in the Stockingford district of Nuneaton by a contractor working on the property. A Bomb Disposal team subsequently destroyed the device in a controlled explosion. A PRAWN trawler based at Ballina in New South Wales, Australia, has recovered a nine-cylinder radial engine complete with propeller. It is believed to have originated from a RAAF Lockheed Hudson which went down at Tallow Beach in 1942, killing all ten servicemen on board. The Hudson, A16-198, was flying from Horne Island in the Torres Strait to RAAF Amberley in southern Queensland. A MEMORIAL service was held on 11 January 2014 to commemorate the crew (one American, one Australian and two Britons) of Boston IIIA BZ387 (OM-L), a 107 Squadron aircraft which crashed, following an engine failure, on 6 January 1944, at Eagle House School, Sandhurst, whilst returning from a raid over northern France. An off-duty airman, who had gone to the scene with two civilians to try to rescue the crew, died after the aircraft blew up. The two others were injured.

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BULLETIN BOARD

THE YORK Army Museum, a former TA Drill Hall located in the heart of York’s ‘Cultural Quarter’, has been awarded a £1 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant to transform its collections and reveal stories of national and international importance ahead of the First World War centenary celebrations. The project will focus on the collections of the Royal Dragoon Guards and Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire, which reflect the roles of the cavalry and infantry in the region over the past 328 years.

MARCH 2014 marks the 69th anniversary of the escape at Island Farm prisoner of war camp, and with the gathering momentum of the rescue project of the hut used in the escape, the council that owns the remainder of the site has given the go-ahead for its doors to opened to the public on the weekend closest to the anniversary –8/9 March 2014. On these two days, Hut 9 will be open to the public to view the paintings and to see the work that is being undertaken by the Hut 9 preservation group. Places are limited. For more information, please visit: www.specialcamp11.co.uk ON FRIDAY, 14 February 2014, the Lancashire and Cheshire Branch of the Western Front Association will host a talk in Stockport by John Stempel in which he will consider how the survival expectancy of British officers was often brutally short. “British Official Film and Photography on the Western Front” is the title of the talk being held by the Birmingham Branch on 15 February 2014, whilst three days later the Cleveland Branch will be hosting “Devil’s Wood”. In the latter the speaker will examine the fighting for the village of Longueval and Delville Wood, both essential to the British and Germans. The fighting raged on for eight weeks and the wood was regarded as a place of horror and death by both sides. On 8 March 2014, Martin Hornby, Chairman of the Somerset Branch, will be speaking to the Wessex Branch (at Pimperne in Dorset) about Scapa Flow. Four days later, on 12 March, Simon Jones will talk about the Glory Hole at La Boisselle on the Somme. For full details of each event, and the many others arranged by the various branches of the WFA, including how to attend, please visit: www. westernfrontassociation.com/ great-war-current-events

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FEBRUARY 2014

News • Restorations • Discoveries • Events • Exhibitions from around the UK

National Project to Commemorate Unrecorded World War Casualties THE NATIONAL Army Museum has announced that, in conjunction with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the British Army, it will undertake a project to investigate cases of First and Second World War soldiers and officers who are currently not commemorated as war casualties. Every year the Commonwealth War Graves Commission receives enquiries from descendants and others who believe that an individual should be recognised in this manner. These missing names predominantly relate to soldiers and officers who died of their injuries away from the battlefield, but whilst still in service. Some casualties who were discharged as unfit because of their injuries and subsequently died may also be eligible for commemoration. The CWGC’s Commemorations Policy Manager, Nic Andrews, said: “The Commission is looking forward to working with the National Army Museum and to ensure [all] those servicemen and women who died in the two World Wars are commemorated in a manner befitting their sacrifice.” David Bownes, Assistant Director of the National Army Museum, said: “Restoring honour to the casualties of the World Wars is a deserving enterprise and one that the National Army Museum’s experts are well-equipped to investigate and substantiate.” All enquiries regarding commemoration in the first instance should still be made direct to the CWGC. If grounds for further investigation are found, the case will then be referred to the National Army Museum.

A member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps tends a graves c.1917. (NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM)

For its part, the National Army Museum will act as adjudicator and will be tasked with researching the cases to corroborate whether they died as a result of their service. The museum’s recommendations will then be sent to the CWGC which will inform the enquirer of the decision. The museum is unable to enter into correspondence with members of the public about individual cases. In the event of an appeal, the Army will make the final decision. This work was previously undertaken by the Army which received up to 300 cases every year. Historically around 85 per cent of

cases successfully pass adjudication. In these instances, the individual’s details are immediately added to the CWGC’s records and an appropriate place of commemoration is sought. If the grave can be identified and marked, that will become the official point of commemoration and a standard CWGC headstone will be erected if appropriate. If not, a memorial to the missing is used and the name added at the earliest opportunity. From January 2014, the National Army Museum will be employing two full-time members of staff to undertake the project.

Road Naming Plan to Honour Belgian Pilot THE NAMING of a road on the Channel Island of Jersey after a wartime Belgian pilot has moved closer, reports Geoff Simpson. A Parish Assembly in St Ouen voted in favour of honouring Squadron Leader Henri Gonay, who was the Commanding Officer of 263 Squadron when he was shot down and killed on 18 June 1944, aged 30. His Hawker Typoon crashed into outbuildings at a house within the parish in the north west of Jersey and the house subsequently burned

down. A woman and two children escaped as the aircraft approached. Henri Gonay had been an instructor in the Belgian Air Force before the war. In May 1940 he went to France and was employed ferrying aircraft. When France was about to fall he escaped to England and was commissioned in the RAFVR. During the Battle of Britain Pilot Officer Gonay flew Blenheims with 235 Squadron. He later served with a number of other squadrons and was awarded the Croix de Guerre of

both Belgium and France. A DFC was gazetted after his death. St Ouen resident Bernie Morel has campaigned for Gonay to be honoured. He explained, “The road concerned runs close to the crash site and currently has no name. I hope that remaining hurdles can be cleared so that a naming ceremony can take place on the 70th anniversary of Henri Gonay’s death in 2014.” Gonay was buried in Jersey, though his remains were returned to Belgium after the war. www.britainatwar.com

NEWS FEATURE |

"Boy" Cornwell VC Letter Sold at Auction

“Boy” Cornwell VC Letter Sold at Auction IN OCTOBER 1915, John “Jack” Travers Cornwell, aged just fifteen, enlisted in the Royal Navy and, after training as a Sight Setter or Gun Layer, became Boy First Class. In April 1916, Cornwell was assigned to the Town-class light cruiser HMS Chester. At only 5ft 3in tall and weighing just 7st 12lb, Cornwall looked every bit the “Boy” rating that he was. Just a month later, HMS Chester was involved in the Battle of Jutland. On 31 May 1916, she had been scouting ahead of the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron when she came under fire from four German cruisers. In the fighting that followed, Chester was hit by seventeen 150mm shells and suffered twenty-nine men killed and forty-nine wounded; many of the latter lost legs because the open backed gun-shields did not reach the deck and give adequate protection. One of the most seriously injured was Boy 1st Class John Cornwell. HMS Chester’s skipper, Captain Lawson, wrote the following to Cornwell’s mother after the battle: “I know you would wish to hear of the splendid fortitude and courage shown by your son during the action of 31 May. His devotion to duty was an example to all of us. The wounds which resulted in his death within a short time were received in the first few minutes of the action.

ABOVE: A contemporary drawing of Cornwell at the forward 5.5 inch gun on the forecastle of the light cruiser HMS Chester during the Battle of Jutland. (HMP)

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“He remained steadily at his most exposed post on the gun, waiting for orders. His gun would not bear on the enemy; all but two of the ten crew were killed or wounded, and he was the only one who was in such an exposed position. But he felt he might be needed and indeed he might have been; so he stayed there, standing and waiting, under heavy fire, with just his own brave heart, and God’s help to support him.” After the action, the ship’s medics found Cornwell to be the sole survivor at his gun, shards of steel penetrating his chest, looking at the gun sights and still waiting for orders. Being incapable of further action, HMS Chester was ordered to the port of Immingham. There Cornwell was transferred to Grimsby

ABOVE: The framed letter sent by the Admiralty to the mother of Boy First Class John Travers Cornwell VC. (COURTESY OF C&T AUCTIONEERS) BELOW: A section of the letter to Alice Cornwell that was recently sold at auction. (COURTESY OF C&T AUCTIONEERS)

General Hospital where he died on the morning of 2 June 1916. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross which was gazetted on 15 September 1916: “The KING has been graciously pleased to approve the grant of the Victoria Cross to Boy, First Class, John Travers Cornwell, O.N.J.42563 (died 2 June 1916), for the conspicuous act of bravery specified below. Mortally wounded early in the action, Boy, First Class, John Travers Cornwell remained standing alone at a most exposed post, quietly awaiting orders, until the end of the action, with the gun’s crew dead and wounded all round him. His age was under sixteen and a half years.”   It is a letter relating to this award that was recently sold by the by Kent-based C&T Auctioneers. The document, mounted in a

wooden frame, is on official admiralty paper and, dated 4 November 1916, was sent to Cornwell’s mother, Alice, enquiring whether she would attend an investiture to receive his VC from the King. Accompanying the letter in the auction was another official document which, dated 2 October 1916, was sent to Lord Beresford regarding the Boy Cornwell Memorial Fund. On 16 November 1916, Alice duly received her son’s Victoria Cross from King George V at Buckingham Palace. She was amongst the nextof-kin of ten men “to whom the VC had been awarded for special gallantry in action, but who had not survived to receive the decorations”. Jack’s medals, including his VC with its blue ribbon, marking a pre-1918 naval award, were placed with the Imperial War Museum by his sister in 1968. They remain there to this day, along with the actual BL 5.5 inch Mk.I forecastle gun (minus shield) he was manning during the Battle of Jutland. The two documents had been estimated to sell for between £800-1,000, but actually realised £2,500 plus premium. www.britainatwar.com

Kamikaze Aircraft Insignia Translated

| NEWS FEATURE MAIN PICTURE: The Fleet Air Arm Museum’s Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka 11 rocketpowered kamikaze aircraft.

(ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE

FLEET AIR ARM MUSEUM UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

Kamikaze Aircraft Insignia Translated A RARE example of a Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka 11 rocket-powered kamikaze aircraft, which had hung from the roof of the Fleet Air Arm Museum (FAAM) for over thirty years, was recently removed in preparation for a new display to commemorate the fighting in the Pacific during the Second World War. Having become available for closer inspection, a number of intriguing markings were noted by the museum’s staff, leading to the launch of an appeal to have them translated. The markings were found in two places – on the left hand side of the aircraft and on the hatchcover which would have been opened to arm 1¼ tons of explosives in the nose of the aircraft. The emblem on the side of the fuselage is that of a cherry blossom, from which the Ohka took its name. The Ohka, or cherry blossom, is a Japanese symbol of flowering and rebirth. When used towards the end of the Second World War, these aircraft were attached to the

underside of Mitsubishi G4M bombers. They were flown to a height of 12,000 feet and released in a steep dive during which three solid fuel rockets would be ignited enabling the aircraft to reach speeds of up to 475mph and travel distances of twenty-one miles before reaching its target. The Ohka 11 was the only operational version of the aircraft. It was basically a 1,200kg bomb with wooden wings. The type is mainly remembered for the attacks made on American ships during the Okinawa landings in April 1945, attacks which had mixed results. One destroyer was hit, broke in two, and sank, whilst another was badly damaged when anti-aircraft fire caused one Ohka to explode close to the ship. A battleship and another destroyer were slightly damaged. FAAM spokesperson Jon Jefferies observed that: “It is chilling to look through the cockpit window of this piloted rocket and through the ringed sight. There’s a grab handle fixed to the inner wall of the cockpit as acceleration

ABOVE: The two sets of markings that have been translated following an appeal by the Fleet Air Arm Museum. Found to refer to weight and other technical specifications, information was received from the United States, Japan and the UK. www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: A captured MXY7 Ohka 11 aircraft pictured on the island of Okinawa at the end of the war. (US NAVY NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NAVAL AVIATION)

generated by the three solid fuel rockets would have been incredible.” The aircraft will eventually undergo a detailed forensic process during which the paint applied after the war will be removed layer by layer to return it to its original paintwork and markings. There are thought to be fewer than twelve Ohka 11 kamikaze aircraft in existence today. Little is known about the history of the example held by the Fleet Air Arm Museum other than it was brought to the UK at the end of the war (the historian Phil Butler states, in War Prizes, that at least four examples were brought to Britain for museum purposes). Usually reported as having the serial number 15-1585, the FAAM’s aircraft is known to have been at the Science Museum as early as 1963, being moved into the museum’s reserve store at Hayes in 1982. It arrived at Yeovilton in June that year. Following the recent appeal, the various insignia on the Ohka have been translated. “I was rather hoping the markings might reflect the attitude of the pilot, perhaps ‘For the glory of the Emperor’,” said Jon Jefferies. However, the longest set of Japanese symbols reads: “Outer plate. Surface of the upper from rear sight. Foresight. Centre to height. 148.0mm.” FEBRUARY 2014 11

NEWS FEATURE |

Folkestone Harbour Visitors' Books Available Online

Folkestone Harbour Visitors’ Books Available Online THE NAME, unit and date of travel of 42,000 men and women who crossed to or from the Western Front through the port of Folkestone during the First World War have been made accessible on line. The material has been gleaned from eight visitors’ books signed by members of the armed forces, the Red Cross and others as they stopped for refreshments in the Harbour Canteen. As reported in the December 2013 issue of Britain at War, the handwritten entries, many of them in pencil, have been painstakingly transcribed and indexed over many months. The original scanning was funded by Kent County Council, but while the scans are interesting in themselves, it is the ability to search the index for a particular name that is exciting historians, researchers and family tree enthusiasts. Yes, there are famous names amongst the ageing pages – Winston Churchill is one of many but there are also signatures of tens of thousands of ordinary people; great uncles, grandparents and great grandparents, each of them with a story to tell. Step Short knows that in some cases volunteers will have misinterpreted an almost-illegible signature and is hoping that the thousands of people expected to visit the site once the information goes live will be able to clarify some of the names and put flesh on the bones of the tale the books tell. Meanwhile the charity can only guess as to the story behind the signatures of men like J. Douglas Jardine of the Liverpool Scottish Regiment. “Was he heading to the front or returning home on 17 September, 1915?” asked trustee Paul Emden. “Was he injured and en route to a rest camp or was he on his way to join his colleagues in the front line. Who had he left back at home and what was in his mind as he finished his cuppa and continued his journey?” Interestingly, the search function on the Step Short website reveals that there are twelve entries for “Churchill”, but only one “Winston Churchill, Minister of War and Air”. He signed

Troops pictured on Marine Parade, Folkestone, during their passage through the port. (COURTESY OF STEP SHORT)

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Folkestone Harbour railway station today, the destination of so many men and women heading to or returning from the Western Front during the First World War. (COURTESY OF MAGGIE JONES)

The top name on this double-page spread from one of the visitors’ books is that of Acting Major Edward Reginald Kearsley, 1st Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, who passed through the canteen on 10 September 1915. As the newspaper cutting stuck into the visitors’ book shows, fifteen days later Kearsley would be awarded the DSO: “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during the attack on the German trenches near Hulluch, on Sept. 25 1915. He was in command of the battalion and, although severely wounded, rallied his men and continued to advance under heavy rifle and machine-gun fire until finally disabled by no less than seven wounds.” On 3 May 1917, it was also announced that Kearlsey had been awarded the Legion d’Honneur. (WITH THE KIND PERMISSION OF

THE KENT ARCHIVES SERVICE)

one of the books on 16 September, 1919. Another signature that will be instantly recognisable to historians is that of Corporal George Sanders, who won the Victoria Cross while serving with the 1/7th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own) during the Battle of the Somme. On 1 July, 1916, Corporal Sanders found himself isolated with thirty men after an attack near Thiepval. He organised his defences, detailed a bombing party and made sure his men knew that their priority was to hold the position. The following day he repelled an attack and rescued a number of prisoners who were being held by the enemy, but it was thirty-six hours before he and his men were relieved. They had given all their food and water to the wounded on the first night.

Corporal Sanders received his VC from the King at Buckingham Palace on 18 November 1916, five days after he signed a visitors’ book at Folkestone. Presumably the entry was made as he was returning from France for the investiture. “While we know the story behind this particular signature, there are thousands more names hiding many other stories,” continued Paul Emden. “We believe this material will be a vital new resource for researchers and family historians who want to know more about relatives who crossed to or from Folkestone between 1915 and 1919.” While anyone can see the scanned pages, only those who sign up as a Friend of Step Short – at a cost of just £10 – will be able to access the detail. For more information, please visit: www.stepshort.co.uk www.britainatwar.com

NEWS FEATURE |

Remarkable Discoveries as the Messines Model is Fully Uncovered

Remarkable Discoveries as the Messines Model is Fully Uncovered THE EXCAVATION of the model of the village of Messines built by German prisoners of war at the wartime Brocton training camp on Cannock Chase in 1918 has been completed, revealing unexpected surprises, reports Lee Dent and Richard Pursehouse of the Chase Project.

Volunteers removing the protective liner that had been placed over the earlier 2007 excavation to protect the model when it had been covered up again.

The model’s condition, though fragile, was found to be surprisingly robust in places, emphasising the mix of construction techniques utilised by the New Zealand Rifle Brigade which oversaw its construction. Though it was disappointing that some parts of the model were missing, this news was tempered by the realisation that previously held theories concerning the accuracy of the model, held by the Chase Project research group, had not only been correct, but had been surpassed. Buildings that were thought to have been damaged by vandals, which, it transpired, had been the reason why County Council staff had covered the model over in the early 1980s, were found to have been constructed in a way that represented “bomb damaged buildings”. Track-ways, a feature not previously known to have existed on the model, were represented in the same manner as roadways by pebbles of a uniform size having been set into a bed of concrete approximately ten centimetres wide. Field boundaries were also identified – it was noted that these had been marked out by thin lines, as if on a map, again with the use of lines of pebbles, though the pebbles were smaller than those used for roads and tracks. All of these factors, combined with the secondary and front line trenches, roadways, contour lines and bunkers made for an extraordinarily accurate representation of the Messines ridge in and around the village of Messines during the month of May 1917.

An unexpected find on the model was a series of bunkers in the buildings in what would have been, in real life, Oyster Reserve trench.

As mentioned above, the covering over of the model to protect it from vandals in the early 1980s was to have an impact on the recent excavation. The depth of topsoil that had been deposited on the western side of the model, combined with the requirement that all material had to be removed off the model by hand, meant that work on its north-western edge was difficult and protracted. Topsoil to a depth of nearly half a metre in places had to be removed before the “diggers” were rewarded with their prize; a valley complete with contour lines, roads and trenches. The inclusion of the valley was evidence that

An important feature on a First World War trench map of the Messines area, “Fanny’s Farm”, was located on the model. Complete with trenches and track-way, it is seen here sat beside one of two types of drainage ditch (on the right) found on the model and which formed part of the its water management system.

The excavation of the Messines model underway; this photograph provides an illustration of the size of the model, which would cover all of the area in view. (ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE CHASE PROJECT UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

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Remarkable Discoveries as the Messines Model is Fully Uncovered

| NEWS FEATURE

"MESSINES" IN MINIATURE

Messines (now Mesen) was considered a strong strategic position, not only from its height above the plain below, but from the extensive system of cellars under the convent known as the Institution Royale. The village was taken from the 1st Cavalry Division by the German 26th Division on 31 October-1 November 1914. An attack by French troops on 6-7 November was unsuccessful and it was not until the Battle of Messines on 7 June 1917 that it was retaken by the New Zealand Division. On 10-11 April 1918, the village fell into German hands once more after a stubborn defence by the South African Brigade, but was retaken for the last time on 28-29 September 1918.

the model not only covered the New Zealanders’ area of attack, but also that of the Cheshire and Worcestershire regiments to their left. The excavation also revealed that the New Zealanders had included a water management system, in the form of two differing types of drainage ditch that were present on all four sides of the model. Brocton camp was notorious for being very dusty in summer, but was also prone to flash flooding in winter. This meant that an adequate system of removing copious amounts of water off forty square yards of concrete was vital to stop the erosion of the surrounding banks and pathways. Due to the time limits imposed on the recent excavation only partial investigation of the ditches was able to take place, though items of interest were recovered. During the 1930s the model was turned into a tourist attraction by Brocton resident Ernest Groucott. While looking after the model, Ernest erected a hut in one corner of the model to afford him some protection from the elements. It was while excavating the north-eastern side of the model that the remains of this hut were found. Lee explained: “We have always known that a hut had been in one of the two corners of a feature we had termed the viewing platform, but it wasn’t until the dig had begun that we decided on the north-eastern one. It was a fantastic surprise that when Martin Brown, Director of No Man’s Land, cleared into the corner and bank, he uncovered the floor area of the hut – but even better the fire grate on which Ernest would have boiled his kettle.” The allotted time for the excavation came to a conclusion when the ‘Messines’ model was subjected to a 3D laser scan. The data collected will enable a digital three-dimensional model to be prepared which will allow digital photography, www.britainatwar.com

Part of The Chase Project’s 2007 excavation having been uncovered and slightly extended. (A) indicates Ulcer Trench; (B) a roadway; (C) a communication trench between Ulcer trench and Ulcer Support; (D) is the route of a trench railway; (E) is Ulcer Support; whilst (F) represents a contour line.

A close up of the remains of a roadway and trenches which illustrates the robustness of the features of the model, as opposed to the ‘slip’ concrete infill.

First World War trench maps and aerial photographs of the current site to be overlaid. The resulting 3D modelling, it is hoped, will be displayed in the Great War Hut at the Marquis Drive visitors’ centre on Cannock Chase. The fragile nature of the 'Messines' Model, along with its exposed location, has meant that this internationally important monument has had to be reburied. “It is a shame that the site has had to be covered over,” said Richard Pursehouse, “but the excavation was always about investigating how much of the model remained and in what condition. The level of detail is way beyond anything we were expecting which is fantastic, but as always with these things more questions are posed by virtue of the work done. Luckily all these questionable areas are around the periphery of the model, so who knows ... The fact that so much of it remains is a testament to those who built it. It has been a tremendous effort by everyone involved – especially all of the volunteers – without whom the project would not have been possible.”

Another revealing find uncovered n the model during the recent excavation was this track-way found crossing the feature that represented October Drive Trench. Until this moment, track-ways were not known to be represented on the model, especially in the same manner as roadways.

One of the miniature buildings which was removed from the model when Rangers from the County Council covered it with topsoil in the early 1980s. A core of house bricks was overlaid with cement to form the building’s shape. Large stones (A) were inserted before being covered with cement to form sloping roofs. The corner of the roof (B) has had burnt brick and tile inserted into it to replicate a roof that has collapsed after being shelled. FEBRUARY 2014 15

NEWS FEATURE |

Spitfire Wreckage to go on Display

Spitfire Wreckage to go on Display IT WAS on 10 June 2013, that the crew of the fishing boat Western Lass had an interesting catch in their trawl net in the waters off Guernsey, writes Simon Hamon and John Goodwin. One of those on board, local engineer Bob Falla, quickly identified the object as the undercarriage leg of a Spitfire Mk.Vb; the crew had previously found similar items in the area but had thrown them back. The location where the undercarriage leg was recovered from suggests that it originated from the wreckage of 312 (Czech) Squadron’s EP539 which, coded DU-C, had been shot down in the vicinity on 14 May 1943. The pilot at the time was 27-year-old Flying Officer Jaroslava Nováka (shown as Jaroslav Novak in RAF records). That evening Nováka had been involved in an anti-shipping strike against reported E-Boats off St Peter Port harbour, Guernsey, as part of Roadstead 2. The attack, which took place at 20.30 hours, was led by Squadron Leader Tomáš Vybiral who was flying AR614 (DU-Z), one of the Spitfires that can still be seen on the airshow circuit today (it was damaged in the attack when a shell entered the cabin narrowly missing Vybiral). The twenty-three attacking Spitfires, from both 312 and 313 squadrons, approached Guernsey at wave top height. Supported by the defences on land, the German convoy, which consisted of twelve boats, opened fire with a fierce anti-aircraft barrage. On their return the RAF pilots described the action as “complete hell”. With flak bursting all around their aircraft they had difficulty in manoeuvring due to their tight formation. At the same time they could not go up any higher as the flak was bursting above them; they also considered that they were already too close to the water. Nevertheless, in due course the attackers claimed that they had hit four of the ships, three of which were damaged and one

16 FEBRUARY 2014

probably sunk (the latter proved incorrect). As for Nováka, his aircraft was hit in the right hand side of the engine and it immediately began billowing thick black smoke. With his starboard wing tip also shot off, Nováka turned his aircraft away from the harbour and headed south-east with three other aircraft in his flight. Moments later, he radioed to say he was going to try and parachute out. However, he found that he could not climb any higher than the 100 feet he was at, so he opted to make an emergency landing on the sea. ABOVE: Flying Officer Jaroslava Nováka, who is commemorated on the Panel 127 of the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede.

ABOVE: Bob Falla pictured with the undercarriage leg from Spitfire Mk.Vb EP539 which was recovered from the seabed off Guernsey. (ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF SIMON HAMON) BELOW: A data plate that was on the undercarriage leg.

In preparation, Nováka jettisoned his canopy; it was at this point that his engine stopped. As he glided down Nováka kept well away from the coast, no doubt trying to avoid the anti-aircraft fire from the coastal batteries which had now joined in. The pilots accompanying him were aware that he could not avoid the impact and radioed him, “Good bye Yardeskie and good luck”. To this Nováka replied, “Goodbye boys give my best wishes …” His words were no doubt directed towards his young wife whom he had married just a few weeks earlier. The Spitfire struck the water at speed. The sea was very rough and Nováka was not seen again – only the red, white and blue stripes on his tail fin were temporarily visible to those circling overhead before EP539 sank. Nováka’s body was never recovered. As a consequence of decades of fishing in the area, along with the actions of the strong tidal currents, the wreckage of EP539 has become spread over a wide area towards the west of Sark, roughly in a line from Guernsey’s Jerbourg Point. The only part known to have been recovered and put on display is EP539’s propeller which can be seen in the German Occupation Museum – it had been similarly trawled up in 1977. The undercarriage leg recovered in 2013 is in remarkably good condition. It is hoped that it will go on display in a museum on Guernsey after formalities have been concluded with the Receiver of Wreck.

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Western Front F_P.indd 1

08/01/2014 11:31

The Bell of WW1 German Battleship Has Been Found in a Garden

| NEWS FEATURE

Bell From a WW1 German Battleship Found in a Garden THE GERMAN battleship SMS Grosser Kurfürst was launched on 5 May 1913, the first example of the four-strong König-class to be completed. Built by Vulcan at Hamburg, Grosser Kurfürst had been originally laid down in May 1911. Armed with ten 30.5cm (12-inch) guns as her main weapons, Grosser Kurfürst joined the German High Seas Fleet on 30 July 1914. The battleship’s first combat operation was its participation in the raid on Great Yarmouth on 2-3 November 1914. Whilst not one of the bombarding warships, Grosser Kurfürst sailed in distant support. On 31 May/1 June 1916, Grosser Kurfürst took part in the Battle of Jutland as part of the Third Battle Squadron. She suffered significant damage, having been hit eight or nine times, including on four occasions by heavy shells. Her casualties were thirty-nine. In November 1916, Grosser Kurfürst was part of a German force that put to sea to rescue two submarines – U-20 and U-30 – which were stranded in fog off the Danish coast. On the return, having only rescued one of the submarines, the

German force encountered the Royal Navy’s J-class submarine HMS J1 (Commander N.F. Laurence, DSO, RN) which was patrolling off Horns Reef. Along with its sister ship SMS Kronprinz (later renamed Kronprinz Wilhelm) Grosser Kurfürst was hit by a torpedo fired by J1. These two battleships were in trouble again on 5 March 1917, when Grosser Kurfürst collided with Kronprinz while exercising at speed in the Heligoland Bight. In the armistice agreement signed on 11 November 1918, the Allied Naval Council decreed that the German High Seas Fleet should be confined to port under its supervision. On 21 November 1918, the High Seas Fleet, amounting to some seventy warships, rendezvoused with a Royal Navy escort and steamed into captivity at Scapa Flow under their own crews. For months the Allied powers argued over how the German ships should be divided up amongst the victors. Eventually, the German commander, Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, took matters into his own hands and ordered his men to scuttle the ships. A RCAHMS (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland) report notes that Grosser Kurfürst “was consistently the worst-maintained of the heavy ships” at TOP: Two views of the ship’s bell from SMS Grosser Kurfürst that was recently re-discovered in a garden in Bristol.

(COURTESY OF ATLANTIC CROSSING AUCTIONS)

BELOW: A sister ship of Grosser Kurfürst, the SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm, pictured in Scapa Flow in 1919.

ABOVE: A photograph of SMS Grosser Kurfürst taken during Operation Albion (this being the German land and naval operation to invade and occupy the West Estonian Archipelago) in October 1917. (BUNDESARCHIV, BILD 146-1971-017-32/CC-BY-SA)

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Scapa Flow. The report adds that “on scuttling she capsized spectacularly to port, her superstructure becoming embedded in the blue clay of the seabed”. Though considered to be beyond salvaging by the Royal Navy, private companies did manage to raise a number of the German ships. Amongst these was Grosser Kurfürst, which was raised on 29 April 1938, without undue difficulty, under the supervision of R.W. McCrone for Metal Industries. The wreck was beached temporarily at Lyness for preparation for the tow to Rosyth. Now the bell of Grosser Kurfürst has been re-discovered. Astonishingly the piece has been sitting in a garden in Bristol for more than seventy years, where one family had used it as a decoration. The grandfather of the family, who was a wine merchant, had bought it along with other nautical memorabilia from a scrap yard shortly after the ship had been sent for dismantling. The 22inhigh bell has been in the family ever since. The bell is to be sold by the maritime auctioneers Atlantic Crossing. The auction will be held at the Avenue St Andrew’s United Reformed Church Hall, in Southampton, at 14.00 hours on 22 March 2014. FEBRUARY 2014 19

NEWS FEATURE |

Canadian War Museum Acquires WW1 Victoria Cross

Canadian War Museum Acquires WW1 Victoria Cross THE CANADIAN War Museum has acquired the Victoria Cross awarded to Corporal (later Sergeant) Herman James Good for his actions on 8 August 1918, the opening day of the Battle of Amiens. The Battle of Amiens was the opening phase of the Allied campaign later known as the Hundred Days Offensive which ultimately led to the end

ABOVE: Sergeant Herman James Good. Born in South Bathurst, New Brunswick on 29 November 1887, Good received his education at Big River School after which he went into the lumber business. He served with the 5th Battalion CEF, 2nd Pioneer Battalion and 13th Battalion. He was wounded three times before the Battle for Amiens. (© CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM, CWM 19940079-032)

TOP: The Victoria Cross medal set awarded to Sergeant Herman James Good. (© CANADIAN WAR

MUSEUM, TILSTON MEMORIAL COLLECTION OF MEDALS, CWM20130405-001, PHOTO BILL KENT)

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of the First World War. Serving in the 13th Infantry Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, the advance of Corporal Good’s company that day was checked by fire from three German machine-guns emplaced in Hangard Wood, near Villers-Bretonneux. The following account of what followed was published in The London Gazette on 27 September 1918: “In attack his company was held up by heavy fire from three machine guns, which were seriously delaying the advance. Realising the gravity of the situation, this N.C.O. dashed forward alone, killing several of the garrison and capturing the remainder. “Later on Cpl. Good, while alone, encountered a battery of 5.9-inch guns, which were in action at the time. Collecting three men of his section, he charged the battery under point-blank fire and captured the entire crews of three guns.” The other three Canadian VCs awarded for actions on 8 August 1918, were posthumous. Sergeant Good survived the war and returned to his native New Brunswick, where he died in 1969 at the age of 80. “Medals such as Sergeant Good’s Victoria Cross help us tell the story of Canada’s role in the First World War,” said James Whitham, Director General of the Canadian War Museum. “As we approach the centenary, it is more important than ever to continue telling their stories.” The Victoria Cross medal is part of a collection of items belonging to Sergeant Good which included his khaki field jacket and regimental Balmoral cap, an inscribed gold watch awarded to him by the town of Bathurst, New Brunswick,

ABOVE: The gold watch presented to Sergeant Good by the town of Bathurst, New Brunswick. (© CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM,

TILSTON MEMORIAL COLLECTION OF MEDALS, CWM20130405-005, PHOTO BILL KENT)

and photographs of Herman and his brother, Ernest Robert Good, who was killed in action. The medal was purchased with the assistance of the Museum’s National Collection Fund. The Fund is supported by donors who help the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum acquire important artifacts of Canada’s cultural and military history that might otherwise be purchased by private collectors or museums outside Canada. With this acquisition, the Canadian War Museum now holds thirty-four of the ninety-six Victoria Crosses awarded to Canadians, the fourth largest collection in the world. The largest collection is that in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum in London, followed by the Australian War Memorial, the National Army Museum and, equal fourth largest, the Royal Green Jackets Museum. www.britainatwar.com

British Soldiers' Graves Honoured in Shanghai

| NEWS FEATURE

British Soldiers’ Graves Honoured in Shanghai FOR CENTURIES a major administrative, shipping, and trading town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to European recognition of its favourable location and economic potential. The city was one of several opened to foreign trade following the British victory over China in the First Opium War and the subsequent 1842 Treaty of Nanking. It was this treaty that led to the establishment of the Shanghai International Settlement, to where the 1st Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles was deployed for three months in 1937 at the height of the fighting between the Japanese and Chinese. “There,” notes the regiment’s historian, M.J.P.M. Corbally, “in co-operation with Royal Marines, US Marines, Italian sailors and troops, French troops, and the Shanghai Volunteer Force … they constructed and manned the defences of the International Settlement and Concessions. Their task was to keep both belligerents, Chinese and Japanese, out. Though never actively engaged, the sound and fury of war was all about them and, from their ringside seats, it was an interesting and useful first-hand study. Within the Battalion there were isolated casualties.” By Sunday, 24 October 1937, the fighting for Shanghai itself had been raging for more than two months. Despite the fact that much of the city and the surrounding countryside had been, and continued to be, devastated by the conflict, on that day a group of British and American civilians decided to go horse riding, with fatal consequences. Mr J.T. Johns, a member of Reuter’s Shangahi staff, provided an account of what happened that day, a description that was printed in the

’plane appeared some of them dismounted and others were thrown off. They all ran to take cover, some in the British sandbag redoubts and others in the fields. “Meanwhile, the ’plane which had zoomed up, circled round and began power-diving towards us again with its machine-gun blazing. When it had swooped down five times we thought we had better drive away so we ran to our car.” Despite the fact that the British post had returned fire with Lewis guns after the Japanese aircraft’s first pass at 15.30 hours, in its wake it left four Chinese farmers dead and a further six wounded. The final casualty was 22-year-old Private Patrick McGowan, 1st Battalion Royal Ulster Rifles. McGowan had been hit in the head and chest during the attack and died on his way to hospital. 

ABOVE: The original caption on this press photograph states that it shows a Japanese aircraft during an attack on Chinese positions around Shanghai in 1937.

Western Daily Press on the 25th: “I was walking with my wife and our dog … in Keswick Road, when I saw a Japanese ’plane making a powerdive towards some British soldiers and ourselves. We ran into a rice field and lay flat on our faces. A moment later we heard a machine-gun firing and we expected every moment to be our last.” Another witness, providing a similar account as J.T. Johns, was nearby in Jessfield Park. “There were also about 20 people out riding there,” continued Mr Johns, “but as soon as the

ABOVE: A contemporary photograph of Shanghai’s Bubbling Well Cemetery. In the winter of 1953-54 the cemetery was reclaimed for redevelopment. Of the 5,500 or so graves within its boundaries at this time there were forty-three Royal Navy and thirteen British Army graves. In the process of removal of the military graves the Chinese authorities obliterated all details other than names. The cemetery is now the site of Jing’an Park.

MAIN PICTURE: Flowers laid on the grave marker of Private Patrick McGowan. (COURTESY OF THE BRITISH CONSULATE GENERAL SHANGHAI)

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FEBRUARY 2014 21

NEWS FEATURE |

British Soldiers' Graves Honoured in Shanghai

Such was the public outrage following McGowan’s death that three days later questions regarding the matter were asked in Parliament. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Anthony Eden, provided a brief account, before stating: “The Commander-in-Chief, China Station, at once reported this inexcusable attack to the Japanese Commander-in-Chief at Shanghai. The Japanese Government instituted inquiries forthwith and on the following day addressed a Note to His Majesty’s Ambassador at Tokyo conveying an apology in the name of the Japanese Government, undertaking on completion of their investigations to deal suitably with the persons responsible for this incident and expressing readiness to make compensation for the damage sustained by the British subjects involved.” The Japanese aircraft, it was claimed, had mistaken the men of the Royal Ulster Rifles for Chinese troops. McGowan, meanwhile, was buried on 25 October. “Shanghai turned out en masse … for the funeral,” noted one reporter. “The ceremony was most impressive. The cortege passed through streets thickly lined by Chinese, many of whom were carrying banners extolling the bravery of Private McGowan … “The crowd at the Bubbling Well Cemetery, where Private McGowan was buried, was so great that hundreds were unable to enter. Six of McGowan’s comrades carried the coffin to the grave. A firing party presented arms, but no volley was fired because under existing circumstances it was felt that the neighbourhood might be alarmed.” Patrick McGowan was not the only British serviceman to die in Shanghai. On 22 December 1937, again speaking in the House of Commons, Anthony Eden confirmed another five servicemen had lost their lives. Private James Mellon, Private William Howard and Private Joseph O’Toole, all of the 1st RUR, were killed on 29 October by Japanese shells bursting inside the defence perimeter at Shanghai, whilst Private R. Delaney died of his wounds several

ABOVE: A 1935-dated map of Shanghai showing the western area of the International Settlement. Keswick Road is believed to have been just off the map to the left, though Jessfield Park is shown (arrowed ‘A’). Bubbling Well Cemetery, where Private McGowan was originally buried, is at ‘B’.

days later. Able-Seaman Lonergan, a sick bay attendant on the gunboat HMS Ladybird, was killed by shell fire from Japanese shore batteries at Wuhu in early December. In addition, Mr. Pembroke Stephens, a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph had been killed by machine-gun fire while observing the fighting in the Shanghai area on or about 15 November. In the years that followed, the location of the graves of McGowan and his colleagues was lost; their families were aware that they had been laid to rest in the Chinese city, but not exactly where. Many symbols of colonial rule – and thousands of foreign graves – were destroyed in Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution. While the gravestones of the Ulstermen were among those razed, it was eventually discovered that they had been re-erected, albeit with some incorrect spellings, such as “McCowan” instead of “McGowan”, which made them harder to track down. The breakthrough came after the niece of

ABOVE: A clip from a newsreel showing Shanghai under attack by Japanese aircraft. (CRITICAL PAST)

22 FEBRUARY 2014

ABOVE: The ceremony in Shanghai’s Song Qing Ling cemetery underway on Wednesday, 11 December 2013. (COURTESY OF THE BRITISH CONSULATE GENERAL SHANGHAI)

Private McGowan, Sarah Moran, who had set out to find out where her uncle was buried, enlisted the support of the British government. It transpired that relatives of Private Mellon were undertaking a similar search. In due course, Matthew Forbes, Deputy Consul General at the British Consulate General Shanghai, and Mark Logan, Head of Communications at the Consulate, received an enquiry from colleagues in London during the summer of 2013. The Consulate then asked a Shanghai-based British historian and author – Mark Felton – if he would help to track down the graves. After extensive research, it was established that the men’s gravestones had been relocated to the city’s Song Qing Ling cemetery. On Wednesday, 11 December 2013, a visit to Shanghai by the Type 45 destroyer HMS Daring provided the ideal opportunity to honour the re-discovered graves. Rear Admiral Matthew Parr, accompanied by Captain Rupert Hollins and Consulate staff, including Consul General Brian Davidson, paid their respects during a ceremony in Song Qing Ling cemetery. Unable to attend herself, Mrs Moran said: “I was very pleased to hear this news. There is a stone in place now with his [McGowan’s] name on it. It would be lovely to travel out there and see the site and the stone.” www.britainatwar.com

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LETTER OF THE MONTH The New Zealanders’ Attack On Polderhoek Château SIR – I was fascinated with Jon Cooksey’s article about the failed attack on Polderhoek Château by the Royal Warwicks [January Issue]. However, this was not the only occasion when the château was attacked. On 3 December that same year, 1917, the 1st Battalion Otago Regiment and the 1st Battalion Wellington Regiment of the 2nd New Zealand Infantry Brigade was also directed to attack the château. Each company was to commit two officers and 100 men, and they would attack in line, with those of the Otago Regiment on the left and those of the Wellington Regiment on the right. Because of the earlier failure described by Mr Cooksey an artillery barrage was to support the attack and arrangements were made for the operation to be covered by a barrage of machine-gun fire, by trench mortars and by a discharge of gas from 4-inch Stokes mortars to help conceal the attack as it was being delivered in broad daylight. The men took over the front line system west of Polderhoek Château on the evening of 1 December. Zero Hour was fixed for midday on the 3rd. There was much confidence that shelling had destroyed the German wire, and this had been checked by numerous patrols. Even in a war of miscalculations, what happened at Polderhoek stands out. The fixed starting line of the artillery barrage for the attack was 150 yards in advance of that

on which the foremost infantry were assembled. But, somehow, the barrage fell right across the area occupied by the first waves of the assaulting troops! The men were being slaughtered so the only way to save themselves was to get up and charge at the enemy. Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Of course as the bombardment had failed to do its job, achieving little else than serving to put the Germans on the alert. When the men ran forward the enemy cut them to pieces. In the confusion the second wave became muddled up with the first and the whole impetus of the attack was lost. A Private Henry Nicholas of the Canterbury Regiment was with a Lewis Gun section that day. According to an announcement in The London Gazette on 8 January 1918, he “had orders to form a defensive flank to the right of the advance which was subsequently checked by heavy machine-gun and rifle fire from an enemy strong point. Whereupon, followed by the remainder of his section at an interval of about twenty-five yards, Pte. Nicholas rushed forward alone, shot the officer in command of the strong point, and overcame the remainder of the garrison of sixteen by means of bombs and bayonet, capturing four wounded prisoners and a machine gun. “He captured this strong point practically singlehanded, and An aerial photograph of Polderhoek Château that was taken by an aircraft of 6 Squadron RFC on 2 October 1917. The Château itself is the distinct dark shadow that can be seen left of centre; the clearly visible structure right of centre is where a barn or similar building once stood. This picture is one of many that appear in Harry’s War: The Great War Diary of Harry Drinkwater published by Ebury Press. For more information, please visit: www.randomhouse.co.uk (WFA/IWM MAPPING THE FRONT PROJECT; IMAGE P5341)

As the fighting in the Ypres Salient intensifies it soon started to take a toll on Polderhoek Château – as this photograph testifies. By the time that the New Zealanders made their attack the building, and indeed its surrounding area, had been obliterated to such an extent that little of it could be seen above ground. (COURTESY OF PAUL REED)

thereby saved many casualties. Subsequently, when the advance had reached its limit, Pte. Nicholas collected ammunition under heavy machine-gun and rifle fire.” For his “exceptional valour and coolness throughout the operations [which] afforded an inspiring example to all”, Nicholas was rightly awarded the Victoria Cross. Some men did manage to reach the German positions, where they hung on in shell-craters waiting for night fall. This was a group of twelve men led by Sergeant J.H. Wilson MM. They beat off two attempts during the day to oust them from their shell hole. Being December it was cold and to make the situation of Wilson’s men even worse it began to snow. Attempts were made to dig forward from the advanced New Zealand line to reach Wilson. Wilson and his group were eventually relieved on the morning of the 5th, having survived for almost two days virtually in the midst of the enemy. Orders were then received from brigade HQ ordering the château and the pillboxes that Mr Cooksey refers to, to be taken. Both Battalion Commanders, Major Tracy (Otago Regiment) and Lieutenant Colonel

Mead (Canterbury Regiment) objected, saying that any attempt at further advance was inadvisable on account of the heavy casualties, which already amounted to fifty per cent of the total strength and included many officers and senior non-commissioned officers. For once common sense prevailed and the order was rescinded. The official history of the Otago Regiment states that: “The attack, while certainly failing to achieve its objective, had resulted in the gaining of certain high ground which commanded the Chateau to such an extent as to seriously embarrass the enemy’s occupation of that stronghold.” In the 1st Battalion of the Otago Regiment alone, every officer that went into the attack became a casualty, of whom two were killed. A further forty-three other ranks were also killed and the total number of casualties amounted to 231 men. The casualties had all been in vain, for despite the usual official optimism trying to put a heavy gloss on the incident, just over a week later all the ground won on 3 December was recovered by the Germans. Stephen Hocking. By email.

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Danger – Don’t Touch

SIR – My mother, Joan Oakley, joined the Women’s Land Army when she was 19, during the Second World War.  She worked on a farm in Sussex – Cook’s Corner Farm, which was located just outside Crowborough – during 1944 and 1945.  It was a dairy and arable farm and she was there with two other Land Girls. In her memoirs my mother wrote: “It was very hard and we all became very strong. During the haymaking and harvest, we had to work overtime, for which we were paid one shilling an hour extra. Sometimes we worked till 9 o’clock.  Yes, it was very hard.” The farm in question was next door to the timber yard where her father worked, and my mother often passed through it. One day she and her friends found a large shell casing in a field and Mum, delighted, picked it up (she mentioned that there was an anti-aircraft unit on a hill nearby and that’s where the shell had originated from). As they walked through the timber yard she raised it up and down like a weight lifter, laughing and playing the fool.

“Put that down VERY CAREFULLY!” said my grandfather, as calmly as he was able. “What’s the matter?” asked Mum, “it’s just a case.” “No, it’s not,” came the reply.  “It’s an unexploded shell!” “Oh,” said Mum, turning pale and obeying instructions. “We’d better call the police,” continued my grandfather and someone ran off to telephone the local station. An hour or so later, the local bobby arrived on his bike. “What’s all this, then?” he asked and was told about the shell.  “Right ho,” he said.  And, with that, picked up the shell and strapped it on the back of the bike. As he set off towards the village, my grandfather watched him in amazement and muttered, “He’ll be jet propelled in a minute!” This was particularly imaginative, since jet aircraft were still very much in the experimental stage! Janet Traill. Western Cape, South Africa.

A Dornier Flying At Low Level

SIR – I am writing to you with reference to the article by Andy Saunders on the low level attack on Kenley on 18 August 1940. It reminded me of my childhood days.  In the 1970s I studied at St Wilfred’s Preparatory School in Seaford, East Sussex. The school was not far from the River Cuckmere. The school was not too far from the (South) Downs either. Some of the teachers had lived in Seaford when the war broke out and they would tell us children about their experiences – two of the teachers were in the armed forces at the time. One day, one of the teachers, after being prompted to tell us more about his experiences, recalled that he had seen a Dornier flying at low level, but he refused to say when or anything else. Reading the article by Andy Saunders made me think that this could be the incident he referred to. It was a treat for us to go onto

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the Downs, which we did twice a week – Wednesdays and Sunday afternoons. But we were always warned about picking up any empty bullet cartridges or anything like that. Once, after going down into a crater, which I was told had been created after a German bomb fell, I found something that I did not recognise. Going to have a closer look, I suddenly heard a teacher shouting at me not to touch it. He then came down and looked at it and ordered everyone to return to school. I later discovered that what I saw was a piece of bomb casing or shell splinter dating back to Second World War. We were also told stories of how the school chapel was once bombed (the school had been in existence at the time of the war) and what would happen during an air raid, as well as what precautions were taken. Sadly, the school no longer exists.   Pratik J. Jasani. By email.

John Cruickshank VC

Sir – A work colleague, knowing something of my father’s war service, showed me the article, in the October issue of your magazine, about John Cruickshank. This reminded me of a photograph [see right] my late father had sent home to his parents from America which shows my father, Ray “Lofty” Davis, with John Cruickshank on his right side and Maurice Curtis on his left. On the reverse of the photograph my father had written, “Jock Cruickshank Scotch!!! and how!” and underneath this is written, “better than any Englishman. Jock C.” All three are in RAF uniform but, I assume, they were still in training as there are no wings sewn on their uniforms. The photograph was taken in Detroit although I don’t know why as my father (and presumably John Cruickshank and Maurice Curtis) trained at Pensacola, Florida. I think they were quite good friends as my father used to tell me that, when on leave, he would sometimes stay with John Cruickshank’s parents. I seem to remember my father telling me that he lent this photograph to be used in a forthcoming book, probably sometime in the late 1980s/ early 1990s but I don’t know whether a book was subsequently published or not. Coincidentally, looking further through your magazine, I noticed in the article “Mosquito Strike” a photograph of the Catalina Vingtor which, I believe, was the first aircraft supplied to No.333 Norwegian detachment of 210 Squadron.

After the war a mechanic from this detachment was one of the founders of a civilian airline, Vingtor Airways. Apparently the airline was named after this Mk.1 Catalina and employed my father as one of its pilots. I believe, however, that the airline struggled to obtain the licences to fly scheduled air services to the UK and finally ceased operations sometime in 1948.

My father then entered the hospitality industry for the rest of his working life running various pubs and hotels and, at one time, was landlord of the “Fighter Pilot” in Canford Heath, Poole, Dorset where the pub became the venue for various service reunions. Peter Davis. By email.

The Soldiers’ Pocket Companion. SIR – I am writing with reference to the correspondent and his friend who cannot find details of The Soldiers’ Pocket Companion. This book was written by the Earl of Meath (Reginald Brabazon Meath) and published in 1915 by Crosby Lockwood and Son for the Church Army – it has 165 pages, not 167 as stated in the original email. The book has a foreword by H.R.H. The Princess Royal and from copies I have come across over

the last 55 years, must have been widely available. Like similar pocket books that seem to have originated in the early 1900s – which were aimed at the Territorial Soldier, it was full of practical details to make life easier in the field plus in the case of these post-1914 editions other items of a religious nature because of who published this particular edition. Glenn Middleton. By email. FEBRUARY 2014 25

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A First World War Survivor – The Former Q-Ship HMS Q23 SIR – I refer to the letter by James Burnett in the December issue’s Fieldpost and also to the News Feature on the First World War maritime commemorations in the January issue. Having read the letter from Mr Burnett, I applaud his comments, as I feel that we forget the work done by our navy during the First World War and the many ships that are still around. In fact, here in Northern Ireland we are proud to have not just one ship from First World War but three of which you have mentioned in the January Issue of Britain at War. However we must not forget that although we have these ships, some are in urgent need of restoration and I feel that the Historic Ships Register must put pressure on owners of these ships to apply for funding as soon as possible. I have enclosed a short background on the one ship that I feel needs urgent restoration and that is Result (HMS Q23). Result is a three-masted cargo schooner built in Carrickfergus in 1893. She was a working ship until 1967, and served for a short time in the Royal Navy during the First World War. She currently rests on land at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, and in 1996 was added to the National Register of Historic Vessels. The ship was ordered from the Paul Rodgers & Co. yard in Carrickfergus by the shipping company Thomas Ashburner & Co., based in Barrow. The ship’s design was a collaboration between Paul Rodgers, Richard Ashburner and Captain Robert Wright, and in consequence she was named Result. Gross tonnage was 122, she was 102ft in length, had a beam of 21ft 8in, and her draught was 7ft 6in. Result was operated by the Ashburner Company until 1909, when she was sold for £1,100 to Captain Henry Clarke of Braunton, North Devon. In March 1914 a 45bhp single-cylinder Kromhout auxiliary engine was fitted. In January 1917 Result was requisitioned by the Royal Navy to act as a Q-ship with the pennant number Q23. She was armed

26 FEBRUARY 2014

with two 12 QF-pounder 18 cwt naval guns forward and aft of the mainmast, a 6-pounder gun forward, and two fixed 14-inch torpedo tubes aft. The crew of twenty-three was commanded by Lieutenant Philip Mack RN, and the second-incommand was Lieutenant George Muhlhauser RNR. The usual procedure for U-boats attacking small merchant ships was to surface and fire a warning shot, then allow the crew to abandon ship before closing and sinking it with shellfire from her deck gun. The Q-ships would simulate the abandoning of the ship by a small “panic party”, and allow the U-boat to approach before raising the White Ensign and opening fire with her concealed weapons. On 15 March 1917, Result was on her first patrol, sailing off the south end of the Dogger Bank, under the flag of the neutral Netherlands, when she spotted the German submarine UC-45 on the surface astern about two miles off. The UC-45 approached to 2,000 yards before opening fire. The “panic party” of five men rowed away in a small boat, leaving the seemingly abandoned vessel to the Germans. However the submarine, wary of deception, closed to no more 1,000 yards, keeping up a steady and rather inaccurate fire. Result sustained some damage to her sails and rigging. Eventually Lieutenant Mack gave the order to attack, and the aft 12-pounder hit the submarine in the conning tower with its first shot. The 6-pounder also hit the submarine, but it then dived, and the 12-pounders second shot missed. Result then headed for the English coast, but that night encountered another German U-boat. Result fired a torpedo, which missed, and both vessels opened fire, to little effect, before the submarine dived. For his actions Lieutenant Mack received a Mention in Despatches. On her next patrol Result was disguised as a Swedish vessel under the name Dag. At 04.00 hours on 5 April 1917, she spotted a U-boat on the surface near the

Two views of the schooner Result, the former Q-ship HMS Q23, on display at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. (COURTESY OF RAY SPENCE)

Noord Hinder Light off Vlissingen. Vlissingen The submarine dived and circled Result, whose crew was unaware that it was being photographed. The submarine eventually resurfaced at about 6,000 yards and opened fire with her 100mm (4in) gun. A shell hit Result amidships, setting fire to the magazine and injuring two men. Result returned fire, but the submarine dived without being hit. She then began to shadow Result, and Mack, fearing an attack by torpedo, dropped a depth charge. The submarine finally fled after several small naval craft approached. Result had no further success in attracting submarines, and it was not until several months later that the Royal Navy learned that she had been photographed and identified as a decoy by the Germans. In July 1917 the crew of Result was transferred to another Q-ship, and, as the Navy could find no other use for her, she was returned to her owners in August 1917. Lieutenant Mack eventually went on to captain other ships including the Q-ships Tay and Tyne. After the First World War he was Lieutenant Commander in charge of the destroyer HMS Tumult and in the Second World War he eventually commanded the 7th and 14th Destroyer Flotilla. By the end of the Second World War he was the Captain of a battleship, HMS King George V, and eventually retired as a Rear Admiral. After the war Result was

employed transporting Welsh slate, slate sailing to Antwerp and other ports, and then along the south coast of England. For most of this time she was jointly-owned by Captain Clarke and Captain Tom Welch, also of Braunton. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War sole ownership passed to Captain Welch. During the war she was employed in the Bristol Channel, transporting coal from ports in south Wales. In 1946 she was refitted with a new 120hp engine and in 1950 she was hired to take part in the filming of Outcast of the Islands, directed by Carol Reed, and starring Trevor Howard and Ralph Richardson. She was refitted for her part at Appledore, and filming took place around the Scilly Isles. Result returned to her previous trade in January 1951 and, under the ownership of Captain Peter Welch, was employed up until 1967, by which time she was the last vessel of her type still in operation. She was at Jersey being converted into a charter yacht when Captain Welch died, and was laid up at Exeter before eventually being sold by Mrs Welch to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. Result sailed to Belfast in late 1970 for some restoration work at the Harland & Wolff shipyard. In 1979 she was transported to the museum’s site at Culta where she remains on display on a plinth. Ray Spence. By email.

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Gibraltar F_P.indd 1

14/01/2014 13:06

LEFT: A patrol of the 18th Hussars attempt to obtain information from members of the local population on 21 August 1914. Three days later the regiment would be in action at Elouges. (IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM; Q56311) BOTTOM: Alongside the tens of thousands of men, and huge quantities of supplies, some 40,000 horses were despatched to France in August 1914 alone. (HMP)

A Fatal Mis t It has been likened to the Charge of the Light Brigade. As was the case at Balaklava, a misinterpreted order led to a valiant, if misguided, attempt to capture the enemy’s guns. Yet the magnificent charge of the 4th Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers and 18th Hussars on the first day of the retreat from Mons in August 1914 has become little more than a footnote in history.

28 FEBRUARY 2014

O

NE OF the most difficult, and dangerous, of military manoeuvres is that of disengaging from the enemy and withdrawing. That the British Expeditionary Force was able to extract itself from Mons with General von Kluck’s massive First Army pressing hard upon it, is a testament to the professional ability of the troops. As one German officer remarked, “Up to all the tricks of the trade from their experience of small wars, the English veterans brilliantly understood how to slip off at the last moment.”1

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A FATAL MISTAKE The Retreat from Mons 1914

s take The BEF, under Field Marshal Sir John French, had marched to Mons in conjunction with General Lanrezac’s French Fifth Army with the intention of striking at the flank of the advancing German forces. Lanrezac found himself facing not the German flank but the front of the German Second and Third Armies. Whilst the French and Germans clashed at the Battle of Charleroi on 21 August 1914, von Kluck’s First Army delivered its famous “right hook” against the BEF at Mons. Lanrezac’s fifteen divisions were overwhelmed by the thirty-eight German divisions and were forced to

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withdraw. This exposed the BEF’s right flank and although the British had held back von Kluck’s assaults at Mons, they were in a dangerously advanced position and had no choice but to withdraw in line with their Allies. II Corps’ 5th Division commanded by Major-General Sir Charles Fergusson, had been posted on the left of the British line at Mons and when the Germans attempted to envelop the flank of the BEF on 24 August 1914, the 5th Division found itself contending with no less than three enemy divisions. The advancing German infantry was stopped in its tracks by the rapid rifle

fire which was the hallmark of the professional Regular Army, regarded at that time as the best trained, equipped and organized British Army ever sent to war. In the lull that followed, the 5th Division was able to withdraw to follow the rest of the BEF in its retreat southwards towards Le Cateau. Though the German infantry had been held back, no enemy cavalry had been seen. Could it be that the attack upon the 5th Division’s front was intended merely to pin Fergusson’s men down whilst the enemy cavalry swept round their flank? Major-General Allenby’s cavalry division was sent off to the 

MAIN PICTURE: As they move towards the front near Mons in August 1914, the horses of a British cavalry unit are rested and watered from a suitable canal. The cavalry’s scope for movement was circumscribed by the availability of water for the horses. (HMP)

FEBRUARY 2014 29

A FATAL MISTAKE The Retreat from Mons 1914

FOOTSTEPS IN HISTORY:

Che min d'Au dreg nies

The Action at Elouges, 24 August 1916

Breton Chemin du

Sugar Factory

5





3

Elouges



G

2

H

H

E

F

Rule de C arao che tte

C

A

1

Ru e

4

d' Au dr eg ni es

D Chaussée Brunehaut

B

A diagram showing the route taken by the 9th Lancers and 4th Dragoons during their charge on 24 August 1914 – indicated by the dashed green arrow. The approximate positions of some of the units involved in the fighting that day are marked – British formations in yellow, German in blue. (A) indicates the 4th Dragoons; (B) the 9th Lancers; (C) the Cheshires; (D) the Norfolks; (E) guns of ‘L’ Battery Royal Horse Artillery; (F) the 119th Battery, Royal Field Artillery; (G) the 93rd Infantry Regiment; and (H) the 72nd Infantry Regiment. RIGHT: The 9th Lancers pictured arriving at Mons on 21 August 1914, three days before they went into action at Elouges. (HMP) BELOW: “Marching through the corn in open order and perfect formation, with fixed bayonets gleaming in the sun, were line upon line of greygreen German infantry,” recalled Major Tom Bridges who commanded one of the 4th Dragoon Guards squadrons during the action at Elouges.

(US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

west to investigate. Seeing nothing of the German cavalry, Allenby’s division then set off southwards to join the rest of the retreating force. It was around this time, just before midday, that the German IV Corps suddenly attacked Fergusson’s 15th Brigade. Fergusson immediately called for help from Allenby. The cavalry retraced its steps, with the 2nd Cavalry Brigade leading the way followed by the 3rd Brigade. As soon as he became aware that he was being attacked, Fergusson formed a rearguard consisting of the 1st Battalion the Norfolk Regiment and the 1st Battalion the Cheshire Regiment supported by 119th Battery Royal Field Artillery (RFA). They had no time to dig in, but found natural cover along some high ground facing almost due westwards. Their right flank rested on a railway line, their left on an old Roman road. It was a reasonable position, given

30 FEBRUARY 2014

“Heavy firing began from the German line – that is, to the north and east, and also to our left. Some – not very much – shrapnel was coming over. I had the impression that an important move was about to take place, and as my position in an action should be alongside my own colonel, who was on ahead, I decided to overtake him. I saw him and a few of his staff turn up to the right and then halt. The remainder of the regiment – all three squadrons as I thought – turned to the left, towards the Germans. I missed my groom and stopped for a moment to look for him; then a squadron of the 9th [Lancers] who had got just in front of me turned about, and I had perforce – because of the narrowness of the lane – to turn about with them. “They turned down to their right between two walls, and there they halted, facing the Germans. I turned about again, intending to rejoin the headquarters of my own regiment. Instead of overtaking them, I found myself with some of the 18th Hussars riding up a slope above some railway lines towards where our field and horse batteries were halted. The firing had become much heavier. Some of our cavalry were riding towards the railway

the circumstances, and in their front was open ground providing a good field of fire. The infantry was therefore in no immediate danger and there was no need for any reckless action. Shortly after the infantry had established its line, the 2nd Cavalry Brigade – 4th Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers and 18th Hussars – appeared on the scene. The 18th Hussars placed itself in the village of Elouges and the 9th Lancers took up position with ‘L’ Battery Royal Horse Artillery to the west of the village. The 4th Dragoon Guards remained to the south of Elouges.  When the 3rd Cavalry Brigade arrived it occupied a position on the high ground to the west of Audregnies. What happened next has never been properly explained, but a medical officer with the 4th Dragoon Guards, Captain Arthur Osburn of the Royal Army Medical Corps, has left this description of events:

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galloped like rabbits in front of a line of guns, in a vain attempt to find some way of getting round. Every moment, beneath the deadly blast of shell and rifle-fire which swept their now broken ranks, men dropped from their saddles, or horses, screaming in agony, came crashing down, until at last, perceiving the impossibility of reaching the enemy, the remnant of the regiment drew rein behind a house.” Just a few moments earlier the cavalry was trotting up to support the infantry and then, without apparent cause or instruction, the entire brigade was charging headlong in to the massed German artillery. Who had given the order to charge? Witnessing the cavalry coming under fire then prompted the British artillery into action. In a bid to silence the enemy guns, 119th Battery, along with ‘L’ Battery, opened fire. This gave away its position and the massed German artillery turned its weapons upon the British battery. The German infantry, seeing the British cavalry bearing down upon their artillery, also opened fire. From nothing, a major engagement had begun and the 2nd Cavalry Brigade was right in the middle of it. “Every rifle and machine-gun on their side was now blazing away at our desperate and rather objectless cavalrymen,” continued Osburn. “What all our men exactly 

It was at this spot, a cross-roads half a mile south-west of Elouges (and just north of the village of Audregnies), that the men of the 9th Lancers and 4th Dragoons formed up before undertaking their charge northwards towards the German positions near the Sugar Factory, the latter no longer in existence. The road leading away from the photographer, in reality now little more than a track, is the Chaussée Brunehaut, a former Roman road. The track to the left, now an overgrown footpath, was once the road to the village of Baisieux, whilst that to the right led directly to Elouges. (HMP)

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lines between us and the Germans, making apparently for the tall brick building – a sugar factory. “A perfect hurricane of shelling began,” recalled Osburn. “Then the whole scene was blotted out in smoke and dust. Like most of the others, I had heard no orders, [and] did not know a charge was taking place. I don’t think anyone except those taking part in it did, and many of them told me afterwards they thought it was only a reconnaissance. “The noise was now terrific. Shells were bursting higher up the hill; some seemed to be skimming overhead. With two mounted signallers and a man of the 18th Hussars I rode in between two walls close to a cemetery, where we sheltered. The broad slope of the hill above and behind, to the south of us, was now one white cloud of bursting shell. “Then some of the 9th and 18th came galloping past us excitedly. Everybody seemed to be shouting, though the din was so deafening we could not hear what they said; but with the signallers I followed some of them, only to find myself again in one of the villages we had passed through nearly an hour before.” One contemporary account provides this description of the 9th Lancers during the action: “Five hundred yards from the enemy the Lancers found themselves held up by a double line of barbed wire, along which they

ABOVE: An artist’s depiction of part of the actions on 24 August 1914 for which Captain Francis Grenfell was awarded the Victoria Cross – namely helping recover the guns of the 119th Battery, Royal Field Artillery. (HMP)

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ABOVE: A part of the British Expeditionary Force pictured arriving in France following the outbreak of war. This picture shows the men of the 11th (Prince Albert’s Own) Hussars on board a ship about to dock at Le Havre on 16 August 1914. (HMP)

"DEAR MOTHER – DO NOT WORRY" PRIVATE BURNS was serving with the Cheshire Regiment when he was involved in the bitter fighting at Elouges on 24 August 1914. Initially his mother was informed by the War Office that he had been killed in action, a communication that was followed, a few weeks later, by a letter from him informing her that he had, in fact, been taken prisoner. The letter, sent from a PoW camp in Germany, was published in the Manchester Evening News on Friday, 18 December 1914: “Dear Mother, – Do not worry, as I am safe enough. I was wounded in the right foot by a shell on August 24 at a place called Elouges, in Belgium, but I am better now. Of course I have had to rough it during the last month. When I was wounded they brought me to a temporary hospital, and the Germans captured the place afterwards. I could not walk, so I could not get away. I was taken from Elouges and put in a hospital at Mons, and then sent on to Rechlenhausen, and then to this place [stated as Zertsh]. I spent my twenty-second birthday wounded in a German hospital. Very nice, wasn’t it. Never mind, better days in store.”

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One of the German units towards which the 9th Lancers and 4th Dragoons charged was the 93rd Infantry Regiment, the men of which were positioned in fields to the west of the Chaussée Brunehaut near the Sugar Factory – the approximate area of which is covered by this recent photograph. The British cavalry would have approached from behind the photographer. (HMP)

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A FATAL MISTAKE The Retreat from Mons 1914 CAPTAIN FRANCIS OCTAVIUS GRENFELL VC ALTHOUGH CAPTAIN Francis Grenfell’s action was not the first of the war for which the Victoria Cross was awarded, it was the first to be gazetted, that is, officially listed in The London Gazette. The announcement on 13 November 1914, stated that the VC had been awarded for “gallantry in action against unbroken infantry at Audregnies and for gallant conduct in assisting to save the guns of the 119th Battery, Royal Field Artillery, near Doubon the same day”. The following account of part of Grenfell’s actions was published soon after the event: “Under the lee of the embankment a battery commandant and some dozen gunners had taken shelter. They belonged to the 119th Battery of the Royal Field Artillery, which had been put out of action, with the loss of most of its men and all its horses, by the enemy’s terrific shell-fire. Captain Grenfell at once determined that an attempt ought to be made to save the abandoned guns, and rode out alone to ascertain if there were any exit for them to the British lines. Some little distance beyond them he discovered a way of retreat, and then coolly walked his horse back to the embankment, amidst a tempest of shot and shell, with the object of minimizing the risk of the undertaking in the eyes of his men.

“‘We have got to save those guns,’ said he, ‘Who’s going to volunteer?’ and he reminded his men of how the 9th Lancers had saved a battery at Maiwand, and of how in South Africa they had never failed the gunners. Every man at once volunteered, and, leaving their horses behind the embankment, about a score of them, together with the survivors of the battery, ran towards the guns. “‘It’s all right, they can’t hit us,’ observed Captain Grenfell coolly, and although more than one journey was necessary and they were exposed to a tremendous fire, they succeeded in man-handling the guns into safety, with the loss of only three men wounded, although, as the last gun was being got away, the German infantry were close upon them. “Captain Grenfell … was invalided home, but at the earliest possible moment he rejoined his regiment and greatly distinguished himself in the fight of the dismounted cavalry at Messines, on November 1st, 1914. Wounded again, this time more severely than before, he once more fought his way back to recovery, but on May 24th, 1915, the 2nd Cavalry Division, among which were the 9th Lancers, were subjected to a violent gas attack [at Hooge, near Ypres] … the poison cloud rising to forty feet, and the emission continuing for four and a half hours. Throughout the gas and the subsequent heavy shelling which they received, this most hardlytried regiment stuck gallantly to their trenches, but they paid a heavy toll, and among the dead was Captain Grenfell.”

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On the opposite side of the Chaussée Brunehaut from the 93rd Infantry Regiment was the 72nd Infantry Regiment, across the front of which the British cavalry passed (and was mauled) after turning away from the area of the Sugar Factory. This is the view from that location looking east towards Elouges itself. The guns of ‘L’ Battery Royal Horse Artillery were positioned roughly where the nearest wind turbine stands, the 119th Battery, Royal Field Artillery a short distance beyond. (HMP)

did – indeed what any of them did – when they debouched from behind those walls [of Elouges] into a perfect hurricane of shell and machine-gun fire, and clouds of dust and ashes disturbed from the slag-heaps, no one seems quite to know. “Some eventually got over to the sugar factory, from which they were soon driven out again by furious machinegun fire; hundreds crashed amongst the railway lines, horses tripped on the low signal-wires or pitched headlong – breaking their riders’ necks – into ballast pits near the railway; some even reached the hedge and the wooden palings bounding the allotments on the far side of the railway, fairly terrifying the Germans by their reckless and meaningless onrush; some few actually galloped under this terrific fire through a half-circle of two miles and survived.” Osburn relates that the principal French liaison officer, the Vicomte de Vauvineur was “blown to pieces” with many of the 4th Dragoons that were next to him, and that most of the other French officers attached to the brigade were also killed or wounded. He also recounts the exploits of Major Tom Bridges. He dashed forward at the head of his squadron full, as Bridges himself said, “of the spirit of the ‘arme blanche’”. Almost as soon as Bridges’ squadron came under fire his horse was shot from under him and the bones of his face badly damaged as he crashed down onto the railway lines. To make matters worse the rest of the squadron then galloped over him and he was knocked unconscious by a kick in the face. When he came to, he found himself in a cottage where a couple of RAMC orderlies were tending to a number of wounded men. The shutters of the windows had been closed by the French owners of the cottage because

bullets were still hammering against the walls of the building. “Stiff and sore,” recounted Bridges, “I got a man to help me on to a chair where I could see through the fanlight over the door. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Marching through the corn in open order and perfect formation,

with fixed bayonets gleaming in the sun, were line upon line of grey-green German infantry. The nearest could not have been 200 yards away. This sight galvanised me into action, and the back door being barricaded, I went through the open widow like the clown in the pantomime.” He found a wounded horse which was just able to carry his weight. He crawled onto the animal’s back and the pair took off as fast as the poor animal could manage with, it felt, Bridges being “the sole target for a whole German army corps”. No-one has been able to determine exactly why the whole brigade charged at the German guns. Osburn’s opinion was as follows: “To delay the advance of the Germans on our retreating infantry and prevent the capture of our field www.britainatwar.com

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Looking north from the junction where the 9th Lancers and 4th Dragoons formed up prior to undertaking their charge. The trees in the middle distance mark the site of the Sugar Factory and the spot where they wheeled to the right. (HMP)

LEFT: A contemporary drawing of British cavalry after a charge – such scenes would almost certainly have been witnessed after the fighting at Elouges on 24 August 1914.

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(HMP)

batteries, our brigade was to make some kind of demonstration in force. This was preceded by a reconnaissance of the ground by two troops of the 18th Hussars or the 9th Lancers. “At all events the two troops sent out to reconnoitre had been followed by practically the whole brigade. The Germans seeing a comparatively large mass of cavalry suddenly let loose and galloping towards them, got a bad attack of nerves – why it is hard to understand, for the network of hedges, wire fences, allotments, trolley lines and other obstructions made it unlikely that our cavalry would ever reach either their infantry or guns. But nearly every German gun within range had at once been put on to the small area on which our cavalry were moving.” Osburn believed that “either the orders were confused or confusing – or the general’s commands were given direct to the troops and squadron concerned, always a fatal mistake, instead of being passed as they should do through the regimental commanders”. Whatever prompted the charge of the 2nd Brigade, the result was the loss of some 250 men. “At 10 a.m. the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, sixteen or seventeen hundred officers and men, Dragoons, Lancers and Hussars, had been

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practically intact,” commented Osburn, “yet before noon it was so broken and scattered as to be for the time being non-existent. By 7 o’clock that evening about two hundred men and a few officers had arrived in Margnies-le-Petit, believing themselves to be the only survivors. Whole batteries of horse and field artillery had apparently been exterminated.” Later it was found that the casualties were not as great as previously thought and the artillery had also escaped. After scattering the British cavalry, the Germans had advanced against the 5th Division’s position. The 119th Battery had continued to fire at the approaching German infantry until they were around 900 yards away, despite the continuing barrage it was enduring from the massed German artillery. When the order to retire was given, the enemy’s fire was so intense the horse teams refused to go forward. Major Earnest Alexander, the battery commander, was determined to save his guns. He ordered his men to push the guns under cover into a place safe enough for the horses to come up to. He found, though, that so many of his men had been killed or wounded, there were not enough of them left to move the guns. Alexander saw Captain

Looking south down Chaussée Brunehaut towards the cross roads from where the 9th Lancers and 4th Dragoons began their charge. Galloping towards the photographer, the 4th Dragoons were on the right side of the road, the 9th Lancers to the left. By the time the cavalry reached the area of the photographer a devastating fire was poured down on them by the men of the 93rd Infantry Regiment (behind the cameraman to the right) and the 72nd Infantry Regiment (likewise, but to the left), both of which were supported by artillery; both British units turned to their right, heading away out to the left of this view. (HMP)

Francis Grenfell of the 9th Lancers and asked for his help. With a number of his men, Grenfell helped Alexander push the guns out of range of the German artillery. The horses were then brought up and all the guns were carried safely away. Both Alexander and Grenfell were awarded the Victoria Cross. With the guns rescued, the remains of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade withdrew. Tom Bridges, badly injured after his fall, had found that he could not speak but he indicated to Francis Grenfell that he would stay where he was in the hope of finding a fit horse and eventually catch up with the rest of the brigade. Soon, though, as the last of the British troops pulled out of Elouges, Bridges feared that he would find himself in the hands of the Germans. Just at this moment a blue and silver Rolls Royce sports model drew up in all its glory. It was being driven by a cavalry signals officer who was scouting round for stragglers. “He picked me up,” wrote Bridges, “and after a dash around the village to assure ourselves that the Germans were really in possession, we whisked round and followed the retreat”. 

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NOTES 1. 2.

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John Terraine, Mons, The Retreat to Victory (Pen & Sword, Barnsley, 2010), p.113. Another version of this is that Bridges, “climbing into the sugar factory at which half a dozen German machine-guns were firing, he got out of a window and, dropping on to the back of a riderless horse, somehow got away.”

ABOVE: Although since demolished, this is the Sugar Factory pictured after the war. Located to the west of Elouges, it was the scene of the disastrous cavalry charge on 24 August 1914. (HMP)

FAR LEFT: One of those present at Elouges on 24 August 1914 was Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Arthur Osburn, pictured here after the First World War. After serving as a private in the Yeomanry during the Boer War, Osburn qualified as a doctor in 1902 and was commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1903. He was promoted major in 1915 and awarded the DSO in 1916. (HMP)

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THE RAILWAY MAN Eric Lomax

WHERE THERE IS LIFE Eric Lomax found himself incarcerated in a Japanese military prison for being part of a group using a concealed radio. Brutally beaten, half-starved and wracked with disease, Eric knew that unless he could find a way to get out of the prison he would die.

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RIC LOMAX was fascinated with technology; his twin interests were steam trains and radio. When he was not working hard to understand the intricacies of electrical circuits and valve patterns with Post Office Telephones, he would be at Edinburgh’s Dalry Road station admiring the power of the great driving wheels of the engines of the London and North Eastern Railway. With war seemingly inevitable, Eric sought to avoid the indiscriminate postings of conscription by joining the Supplementary Reserve of the Royal Corps of Signals, which recruited men from the Post Office. On 24 August 1939, he received his mobilisation papers and in the spring of 1941 he sailed for Singapore.

SURRENDER The catalogue of disasters and defeats that followed the Japanese attack upon www.britainatwar.com

Malaya and Singapore in December 1941 and January 1942 has been well documented. The result was the unprecedented surrender of some 80,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers in February 1942. Amongst those who found themselves in captivity was Second Lieutenant Eric Lomax. Like many of the prisoners of war Lomax was initially held in Singapore’s Changi jail. By and large the prisoners were allowed to look after themselves. There was little point in attempting escape as there was simply nowhere to escape to. Shortly, however, large numbers of men were taken away to work on the railway which, it was intended, would run all the way to Burma’s capital, Rangoon. This line would enable the Japanese to supply their troops in Burma in safety rather than by sea where their ships were at the mercy of the Allied navies.

When it was finally Eric’s turn to be drafted to Kanchanaburi in Thailand to help build what became known as the “Death Railway”, his technical skills were in great demand and, as an ‘engineer’ he avoided the heavy manual labour that the ordinary soldiers were compelled to endure. The signallers managed, through smuggled pieces of equipment, to build a simple radio receiver, powering it with a lorry battery. With this they were able to receive BBC Radio India broadcasts. Their clandestine activities helped the morale of the men working on the railway as they secretly passed on the news of Axis defeats and Allied victories. They gave the men hope at a time of utter hopelessness. Then one day everything changed. The Japanese conducted a thorough search of the engineer’s encampment and the wireless was discovered. As a signalman, and officer, Eric was immediately suspected. 

MAIN PICTURE: Eric Lomax wrote about his extraordinary experiences in Singapore and Thailand in The Railway Man, published by Vintage Books in 1996. This has now been made into a film staring Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman and Jeremy Irvine. It is a scene from that film that is seen here.

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THE RAILWAY MAN Eric Lomax RIGHT: A scene from The Railway Man depicting Allied prisoners of war being brought together in preparation for work commencing on the Burma railway. BELOW RIGHT: Prisoners of war carrying railway sleepers during the construction of a stretch of the Burma railway, around thirty miles south of Thanbyuzayat, sometime in 1943. (COURTESY OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; P00406.026)

BOTTOM: This painting, entitled On the Thailand Railway, 1, was completed by Harold Abbott in 1946. An official war artist, Abbott was never taken prisoner of war but his painting graphically depicts three emaciated, naked prisoners bent over carrying a large log across a timber bridge platform over a river. This artwork forms part of a ‘triptych of suffering’ by Abbott, covering the fall of Singapore and prisoner experiences of the railway. (COURTESY OF

THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; ART22930)

CONCEALED WIRELESS The Japanese, relatively few in number, were worried about Thai rebels. If the rebels could communicate with the prisoners, who were after all soldiers, and organise a revolt, the Japanese might well find themselves in some difficulty. Certainly any action by the prisoners might jeopardise the strict timetable for the building of the railway and this would bring retribution down upon the heads of those Japanese officers responsible for the completion of the railway. Those deemed accountable for the illegal radio, five officers, were driven to the camp at Kanburi, a prison for those accused of anti-Japanese activities. The

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first ill-treatment they suffered was to be stood out all day in the 100degree sun. After twelve hours of this, the first of the five was beaten senseless with pickhandles by a party of Japanese and Korean guards. “That first blow,” Eric later recorded, “was like a labourer getting into the rhythm of his job, then the others joining in, a confused percussive crescendo of slaps and thuds on flesh and bone. They kept kicking him, getting him up, putting him down – until he stopped moving altogether, unconscious or dead, I could not tell.” Over the course of the next few days and nights the punishment of being in the sun all day and being beaten at night was inflicted upon two others including Eric, though the remaining two of the five were not touched. Eric’s arms were broken and his hips badly damaged. In due course, the men were taken to the local Kempeitai (the Japanese Military Police) headquarters. Here they were placed in tiny cells. They were not allowed to speak at all. No communication was permitted of any description. www.britainatwar.com

HELLFIRE PASS LOCATED IN the Tenasserim Hills, Hellfire Pass, or Konyu Cutting, was a particularly difficult section of the line to build. It was the largest rock cutting on the Burma Railway, coupled with its general remoteness and the lack of proper construction tools during building. Work began on 25 April 1943, using 400 Australian PoWs. By June the building of this stretch of the railway was already behind schedule and in July an additional work party of 600 Australian and British prisoners was employed in an attempt to complete the section on schedule. During the next six weeks the prisoners were forced to work twelve to eighteen hour shifts around the clock, without a rest day, until the section was completed in mid-August. The cutting is in two sections: the first is approximately 450 metres long and 7 metres deep, whilst the second is 75 metres long and 25 metres deep. The work was carried out using 8lb hammers, steel tap drills, explosives, picks, shovels and chunkels (wide hoes). At one point an air compressor and jackhammers were used. The prisoners removed the waste rock by hand using cane baskets and rice sacks slung on two poles. The Konyu section of the railway cost the lives of at least 700 Allied prisoners including sixty-nine who were beaten to death by Japanese engineers or Korean guards.

The Kempeitai were determined to find out if Eric had been communicating with Thai rebels and he underwent repeated interrogations and torture. He could not give them the answers they wanted, and so the torture continued.

LIVING SKELETONS Eventually, the Kempeitai gave up on their captives. Sentenced to between five and ten years imprisonment, they were taken back to Singapore and to Outram Road jail which had been the main civilian prison in the late 1930s. Eric described what he saw upon his arrival: “In the yard were about twenty prisoners, most of them apparently unable to walk. Some lay flat out; some were crawling on their hands and knees. Several were totally naked. Almost all had one thing in common: they were living skeletons, with ribs and bones protruding from shrunken flesh ... Their skins were raw, pustular and peeling; some men were covered in angry scabby patches. We thought these tragic figures must be British and Australian, but they were almost beyond recognition.”

Again strict silence was imposed upon the prisoners. They were fed so little that they continued to lose weight and in unsanitary conditions, never able to wash, their skin became covered with rashes and boils. “I discovered that I could close my hand around my own upper arm,” Eric was shocked to find, “and that my stomach was very close to my spine; there seemed to be no solid body on me anywhere. My ribs were sticking out ... I had become one of the living dead who had frightened me when I first came to Outram Road. I knew I was close to death, and that I had to get out of Outram Road at all costs.

THE CHIMING OF A DISTANT CLOCK Eric saw his chance when the Japanese began separately identifying extremely sick men and classifying them as “byoki”. Such men were then placed in a group of cells where the doors were left open during the daytime and the patients were excused from work details. Slight though these improvements would be, they did represent one step away from the worst horrors. It was also thought

Hellfire Pass, or the Konyu Cutting as it was known to the Japanese, as it appeared in September 1945. It was the largest rock cutting on the Burma Railway, coupled with its general remoteness and the lack of proper construction tools during building. (COURTESY OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR

MEMORIAL; 157859)

Nicole Kidman, who plays Patti Lomax in The Railway Man, recalled the moment that Eric’s wife spoke of this spot on the Burma Railway: “She said – ‘be careful when you get to Hellfire Pass. It has a power. There’s just something there, you can feel the darkness and it stays with you.’ Patti said the moment she absorbed it, when she first visited, she wept, not just for Eric but for all the boys there, and Eric comforted her.” Colin Firth echoed these sentiments: “Something immense happened there and it can’t fail to leave a mark, whether it’s the power of your imagination or not. It was something beyond the comprehension of most people. You stand in a huge cutting in the rock, it’s towering above you, and you’re told this was carved by men with hand tools in the space of six week and this is how many men died just here, it’s shattering actually.”

that those which did not show signs of rapid recovery were taken to the hospital at Changi prison. In the countless, empty hours Eric had found that he could force his pulse rate up by deep and rapid breathing. He could push his pulse so high that it frightened his cellmate, and even Eric himself. He also found that he could actually count his heartbeats. In the silence of the camp, the faint chiming of a clock somewhere could be heard. As well as registering the hour, the clock also chimed on the quarters as well. Eric trained himself to count the throb of his pulse for fifteen minutes at a time. As he said, what else did he have to do?  www.britainatwar.com

TOP LEFT: Australian and British prisoners of war lay sections of track on the Burma-Thailand railway during 1943. Many of the men in this group were captured in Java. (COURTESY

OF THE AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; P00406.034)

LEFT: A scene from the film The Railway Man depicting the construction of part of the Burma railway. FEBRUARY 2014 37

RIGHT: One of the additional huts erected at Changi by the Japanese to house Allied prisoners. For much of its existence Changi was not one camp but rather a collection of up to seven PoW and internee camps, occupying an area of nearly ten square miles. Its name came from the peninsula on which it stood, at the east end of Singapore Island. Prior to the war the Changi Peninsula had been the British Army’s principal base area in Singapore. (HMP) RIGHT: One of the hospital wards at Changi. The name Changi is synonymous with the suffering of Japanese-held Allied PoWs during the Second World War. This is ironic, notes the Australian War Memorial since “for most of the war in the Far East Changi was, in reality, one of the most benign of the Japanese prisoner-ofwar camps; its privations were relatively minor compared to those of others, particularly those on the Burma–Thailand railway.” (HMP)

The normal pulse rate is around seventy-five beats per minute. Eric forced his pulse up to such a speed that it was too fast for him to count. Eric reached the point where he could induce this state at any time he chose and he decided that he would make his move. He was already near hallucinating from starvation and weakness and he knew that if he drove up his pulse to a dangerous state he would not need much acting skill to appear in a fatal fit. “One day, when I was lying down and there was a warder within earshot, I worked my pulse up, cried out and twisted and clutched myself,” Eric explained. “My performance had an effect; the warder took a look at me and had me carried down to one of the ‘sick’ cells.” Here Eric was placed in a cell with an Australian called Stan Davis who was not sick but was being used to look after the patients to save the Japanese orderly from that distasteful task. Together they plotted how they could escape to Changi.

THE RAILWAY MAN MOST SURVIVORS of the notorious “Death Railway” kept quiet about what happened to them in the war. At least, they were quiet in the daytime. Their nights, however, were filled with rages and nightmares. Decades on, Eric Lomax broke his silence. Soldier that he was, he turned and faced his demons – both psychological and real. His acclaimed book, The Railway Man, has now been turned into a film, though Eric himself never got to see the end result – he passed away in October 2012 whilst the film was in its final stages of edit.

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FEIGNED DEATH They agreed that Eric would eat all the food which went into the cell except the rice, all of which, and nothing else, would be consumed by Stan. By this time the food had improved a little, with a few soya beans or fragments of fish accompanying the rice. Gradually Eric became even thinner and Stan became increasingly bloated – one of the signs of wet beri-beri. They then made a point of stumbling and falling every time they left their cell. The possibly unintended consequence of this was that they were confined to their cell twenty-four hours a day. Nothing, though, would deter them from their plan. They tried to pass the hours by sleeping, though this was not easy: “When the body is so thin that your prominent bones stick out like handles there is no ease to be had on three wooden planks,” remembered Eric, “and my hips were still in poor shape.” After two months of dogged

determination the men were in very poor condition. Again Eric decided to force the situation and pushed his pulse rate up. His body began to shake and, as Eric recalled, it was not too difficult to feign imminent death when you already look like a corpse. Stan called a warder, who in turn passed the problem up the chain of command. It worked. The next morning a stretcher party came and took Eric away. Stan was left behind. When he next risked opening his eyes he looked up not into the face of an indifferent or angry Japanese but into the warm, welcoming smiles of British and Australian servicemen. Changi was a dreadful place but to Eric Lomax it seemed like heaven. He was placed on a real bed with a mattress and cotton sheets. He was given real tea, water to wash with and, most of all, he was cared for. The hospital was run by an Australian doctor who gave him the best food that came into www.britainatwar.com

THE RAILWAY MAN Eric Lomax

A view of Changi Prison taken soon after its liberation. The prison, originally built in 1936, was demolished in 2004 but a section of its wall and the main gate were retained after protests by the Australian government and former PoWs. (COURTESY OF LIZZIE ELLIS)

the jail – milk and the occasional egg – to supplement the daily rice. Slowly Eric began to put on some weight (he was weighed when he first arrived at the hospital and found to be just seven-and-a-half stones) and his skin began to clear. However, as his health improved, so the risk of being returned to Outram Road became ever more likely. As Eric put it, he was only “on leave from obscenity”. One of those who had preceded Eric from Outram Road, Jack Macalister, knew that his recovery had reached “dangerous” levels and that he was in danger of being returned to that hellhole. So, with the help of one of the

medical orderlies, he planned to extend his stay at Changi for a little longer. Macalister sat on a chair and held a length of two-inch steel pipe vertically over his left foot. The orderly lifted a big hammer and smashed it down on the open top of the pipe and smashed Macalister’s foot. Macalister was in terrible pain as the medical orderly placed his broken foot in plaster. He had bought himself a few extra weeks of humane treatment.

BACK TO OUTRAM ROAD Lomax, though, did not resort to such measures and, when he was deemed well enough, he was taken back to

Outram Road. Conditions had improved a little whilst he had been in Changi but the place was still terrible and Eric had no intention of dying in what he referred to as “that cesspit”. His new plan was to inflict physical trauma upon himself, but hoping to avoid the kind of injury endured by Macalister. He asked to join the so-called “Binki Squad”. This consisted of six or eight men who were called out from their cells every morning to collect the latrine buckets. Working in pairs, they would visit each occupied cell and pick up the latrine buckets and carry them away on a broad wooden stretcher to be emptied into a manhole in one of the 

ABOVE: Allied prisoners are pictured in the thoroughfare area of Changi prison soon after its liberation. Each cell off this thoroughfare housed four prisoners, though built originally to accommodate one. (COURTESY OF THE STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA)

BELOW: Hellfire Pass today. (SHUTTERSTOCK)

THE REALITY JEREMY IRVINE, who portrays the young Eric Lomax in The Railway Man, recalled one period he spent in the Burmese jungle in preparation for filming: “When we reached Thailand our military advisor, Rod Beattie, took Sam Reid and I up into the mountains, to a section of the railway which had been reclaimed by the jungle. “We helped him clear a section of it and you’re working there in 40 degree heat and 98% humidity with just hand tools as the PoWs would have done and we did maybe an hour and a half and I was wrecked. You’re dripping sweat from the moment you get out of the van and we weren’t even lugging all our kit with us. To imagine doing that for sixteen hours a day on such meagre food rations and very little water, that was a very big moment, really brought it home.”

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FEBRUARY 2014 39

THE RAILWAY MAN Eric Lomax MAIN PICTURE: Another scene from The Railway Man depicting the Burma Railway under construction. In preparation for his part in the film, Colin Firth travelled to Berwick-uponTweed to meet Eric Lomax. Speaking of the film, Firth said: “I think what is not often addressed is the effect over time. We do sometimes see stories about what it’s like coming home from war; we very rarely see stories about what it’s like decades later.”

yards. This gave him a legitimate reason to be walking around. His plan was to throw himself down the metal prison stairs. He clearly did not want to do this with full buckets as it was likely to result in him being covered in excrement. It would have to be as he walked up the steps with empty buckets. “As we left the yard, I wedged my spectacles as securely as I could behind my ears, jammed my cap on tight to protect my ears and the glasses, and entered the block,” Lomax explained. “I told the man in front of me not to hold on to his end of the stretcher too tightly and to let go altogether immediately he felt it being pulled out of his hands.”

WHERE THERE IS LIFE The party moved through the main hall and came to the bottom of the

stairs. “I counted as we went up,” continued Eric, “then as we neared the turn of the stairs, with my right foot on the 17th step I lifted my left foot towards the 18th, shoved my leg through the open back and pulled the stretcher down on top of me with its load of empty buckets and lids. “The noise of crashing wood and metal in that huge silent gallery was frightful. I roared with pain and relief, and sprawled out at the bottom mixed up in the heap, trying to look as contorted as I could ... I was hurting, but I could not take the risk of checking how much damage had been done.” Eric was carried to his cell. Though he was careful not to move, he wiggled his toes a fraction just to check that his spine was not broken. He was determined to pretend that he was

unable to move. For two whole weeks he remained motionless, refusing much of the food that he was offered. By this time he was close to starvation. “Nothing eased the abrasion of bones on skin without fat,” he remembered. “I felt encased in a paper-thin membrane irritated and chafed by the very act of lying still. The urge to move was unbearable. All that time I wore the same shirt and shorts, which became dirty rags congealed to my body.” Eventually, he resorted to soiling himself and that proved to be enough to convince the guards that he was genuinely ill. At last he was transferred back to Changi Prison hospital. He remained there until Japan surrendered. Eric Lomax had shown that whatever the circumstance, where there is life, there is always hope. 

“We thought these tragic figures must be British and Australian, but they were almost beyond recognition.”

40 FEBRUARY 2014

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Death of a Throughout the history of warfare, senior military officers have lost their lives during wartime be it by accident or in action. The death of Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 is one of the most famous instances, cut down by a French sniper at the height of the battle. It will therefore come as no surprise, as Chris Goss narrates, that it happened numerous times during the Second World War, one such death being that of Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert.

U Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert.

42 FEBRUARY 2014

LRICH GRAUERT was born in Berlin in 1889 and in 1909 joined the German Army being commissioned as an officer cadet in the artillery. He soon joined 1 Feldartillerie Regiment which was based in Kolberg and at the start of the First World War was a Leutnant platoon commander in the regiment’s 6th Battery. However, it would appear that he transferred to flying duties and, following the award of the Prussian observer’s badge, in July 1916 Oberleutnant Grauert was posted to the flying unit Kasta 28 based at Mouzon, south-west of Sedan in France. It is believed that he commanded this

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DEATH OF A GENERAL Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert

f a General unit until December 1916. This unit was devoted to artillery observation as was Fliegerabteilung 256 (Artillerie) which Grauert commanded from August to September 1918, after which he was posted to the staff of 6 Division where he remained to the end of the war. Grauert remained with the Army after the war, resuming non-flying duties with the artillery. However, in 1933 he transferred to the new Luftwaffe. Promotion for Grauert came fast – Oberst in 1934 and in 1936 he was promoted to Generalmajor. During this time, Grauert held a number of staff or training posts and took the opportunity to qualify as a pilot. In 1938 he was promoted to Generalleutnant and took command of 1 Flieger-Division which was based at Schoenfeld/Croessinsee and which Grauert was still commanding at the time of the attack on Poland in September 1939 when he led four (later seven) bomber wings, three Stuka wings, a heavy fighter wing, a fighter wing and a reconnaissance squadron. In October 1939, Grauert was promoted to General der Flieger and

continued to command 1 Fliegerkorps from Beauvais in northern France throughout the Battle of Britain and the Luftwaffe’s subsequent bomber offensive against the UK. However, before the Blitz officially ended on 21 May 1941, he would be dead.

ESCAPE FROM POLAND

given command of I Fliegerkorps based at Cologne. He was still commanding this formation during the invasion of France and the Low Countries on 10 May 1940. Grauert’s bomber and fighter units acquitted themselves well and for his leadership, was awarded the Ritterkreuz (Knight’s Cross) on 29 May 1940. Generaloberst Grauert (he had been promoted again on 19 July 1940)

Waclaw Giermer was born in 1916 and at the end of his studies joined the Polish Air Force. He escaped to Romania and then France following the surrender of Poland in 1939. When the Germans subsequently invaded France, he was flying Morane 406s with Auto Defence SNCAC Bourges. Following France’s surrender, Giermer was forced to flee again, this time to North Africa. From there Giermer reached Gibraltar, eventually managing to make it to Britain where he joined the RAF. Just after the end of the Battle of Britain he was posted to 43 Squadron flying Hurricanes from Usworth in north-west England. Despite his experience in Poland and France, he was not considered ready to fly Hurricanes in combat so much of his time was spent getting used 

ABOVE: Having just landed, a Junkers Ju 52 is pictured taxiing across an airfield in northern France. Its escort is still airborne in the background, waiting its turn to land. LEFT: Sergeant Waclaw Giermer (on the left) is pictured in front of one of 303 Squadron’s Spitfires with Sergeant Mieczyslaw Popek. Popek was one of the six pilots involved in the Rhubarb mission on 15 May 1941, though his section (the second Spitfire in this was flown by Pilot Officer Stefan Paderewski) was tasked to attack targets in the St. Omer area.

MAIN PICTURE: A Junkers Ju 52 transport, similar to that in which Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert was travelling on 15 May 1941, is pictured at a Luftwaffe airfield in Belgium during the summer of 1940. The VIP passenger on this occasion was Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. (ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

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FEBRUARY 2014 43

DEATH OF A GENERAL Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert RIGHT: Another of 303 Squadron’s Spitfires, in this case P8085 (RF-J), taxiing in preparation for a mission over northern France. This aircraft was flown by Sergeant Mieczyslaw Popek during the Rhubarb on 15 May 1941; Popek strafed St. Omer during the flight. (VIA W. MATUSIAC)

to the fighter. This was not without incident – as the events of 26 November 1940 illustrated. Whilst carrying out an hour’s air combat and formation flying, Giermer’s cockpit filled with glycol fumes and he was forced to crash-land his Hurricane (serial P3527) three miles south of Usworth – during which he hit his head on the gun sight and suffered minor facial injuries. In his memoirs, published just before his death in 2006, Waclaw recalled what happened: “I noticed that the engine started to overheat and before I had time to find the nearest airfield,

FATEFUL DAY ABOVE: An original pair of Polish wings and a 303 Squadron badge presented to the author by Waclaw Giermer. (COURTESY OF ANDRA GOSS PHOTOS)

glycol started to boil and white smoke started to come out of both sides of the engine ... I saw a small field ahead and brushed the ground wheels up. As my harness was rather loose, I banged my head on the rubber cover of the gun sight and cut my forehead above one eye.” On 15 March 1941, Waclaw was posted to 303 Squadron at RAF Northolt, finally flying his first operational sortie on 4 May 1941. His second sortie on 15 May 1941 would be far more memorable.

During the morning of 15 May 1941, Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert, together with his Personal Staff Officer Oberleutnant Heinrich Doenitz, took off from Beauvais in a Junkers Ju 52 coded 7U+OM of Transportstaffel I Fliegerkorps. He was heading to an un-named airfield in his I Fliegerkorps area, apparently for an inspection. The transport ’plane’s crew consisted of Feldwebel Fritz Riewe (pilot), Oberfeldwebel Bruno Schlesiger (radio operator) and Feldwebel Robert Rose. Unbeknown to the Germans, just before noon three pairs of Spitfires from 303 Squadron were tasked to carry out a

Rhubarb offensive patrol over northern France. The first pair comprised Flight Lieutenant Jerzy Jankiewicz (Blue 1 in Spitfire II, P8130, coded RF-T) and Sergeant Waclaw Giermer (Blue 2; Spitfire II, P7786, coded RF-C). Refuelling at Hawkinge on the Kent coast, having arrived from Northolt, the three pairs took off at 12.15 hours and headed across the Channel, using cloud for cover and flying at low level to mask their approach. Crossing the French coast at Hardelot, their destination was Merville, south-east of St Omer. The squadron's Operations Record Book described what followed:

“The aircraft immediately dived and after hitting the ground burst into flames and thick smoke.”

BELOW: Spitfire II P7786, coded RF-C, was the aircraft flown by Sergeant Waclaw Giermer, as Blue 2, on 15 May 1941 – he can be seen in the cockpit. (VIA W. MATUSIAC)

44 FEBRUARY 2014

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 ANOTHER HIGH RANKING LUFTWAFFE LOSS Both Jankiewicz and Giermer then set a course for home, landing back at Northolt at 13.25 hours. German records confirm that the Ju 52 crashed close to the Aire-Boulogne road (the D341) near the hamlet of Manillet. There were no survivors.

BODIES RECOVERED

“Aircraft crossed the French coast in cloud and a few miles inland came down to a low altitude. Near Aire the pilots saw on E/A [Enemy Aircraft] flying at 400ft in a north-easterly direction, and on approaching it recognized it as a Ju.52.” This was Generaloberst Grauert’s transport flying north-east from Beauvais, apparently without an escort. The Polish pilots made their approach from below and astern. “At a range of about 100 yds have a five to six second burst which set the port engine on fire,” recalled Jankiewicz in his combat report. “The aircraft began to lose height.” After Jankiewicz had broken away, Giermer made his attack: “I followed Flt Lt Jankiewicz and gave a three second burst at the Ju 52’s starboard engine from 100 yds. The aircraft immediately dived and after hitting the ground burst into flames and thick smoke.”

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Waclaw Giermer would continue to fly a series of sweeps and escort sorties without incident until the afternoon of 8 July 1941. That day, as part of Circus 40, 303 Squadron was one of nineteen squadrons escorting three Short Stirlings to attack Lille. Having apparently shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 between Lille and Dunkirk and having seen the pilot bale out, Giermer too came under attack. “Another Me 109 had approached unnoticed and hit my Spitfire with a cannon shell on the starboard side of the cockpit and splinters fractured my right elbow and went into my right arm and leg,” he wrote. “I was able to control my aircraft with my left hand during the attacks that followed, managed to fire with my cannon at another Me 109 but saw no results. My wounds were troubling me and I had to drop out of formation. I could not keep my aircraft up so decided to try to reach England by gradually losing height. When I finally got to Manston I had to use my foot and left hand to get my undercarriage down but had to land without getting my flaps down.” With his Spitfire safely landed, though his cockpit was covered in blood, Giermer passed out, He regained consciousness in Margate Hospital. His wounds meant that he

A pillar of smoke rising into the sky marks the death of another high ranking German officer. A First World War veteran, having served in the Army, Generalmajor Friedrich “Fritz” Löb transferred to the Luftwaffe in 1934. He then undertook a series of technical staff positions before being giving command of the Luftwaffe’s logistical support units in northern France and Belgium on 30 May 1940. On 22 June 1940, his Lufthansa Junkers Ju 52 collided with another aircraft at Brussels-Evere airfield. The crash resulted in the death of Löb and eight passengers and crew; another two were injured. 

LEFT: Flight Lieutenant Jerzy Jankiewicz (Blue 1 on 15 May 1941) pictured in front of P7524, RF-G. (VIA W. MATUSIAC)

did not return to 303 Squadron to fly his next operational flight until 8 December 1941. As for Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert, his body and those of Oberleutnant Heinrich Doenitz and the Ju 52’s crew, were all recovered and buried at Nampcel German War Cemetery, which in itself is unusual. There are 11,427 German soldiers from the First World War buried at this location, with just five from the Second World War, these being Grauert and the others killed on 15 May 1941. Furthermore, Nampcel is 120 miles south-east of the crash site, albeit it is not that far from Beauvais. Ulrich Grauert would soon be replaced. His successor, General Helmuth Förster, took up post just over two weeks later and, shortly after, I Fliegerkorps moved east in preparation for the invasion of the Soviet Union. 

BELOW LEFT: Waclaw Giermer pictured in hospital after being wounded during a combat on 8 July 1941. Having recovered, he continued to fly with 303 Squadron until September 1942, claiming a Bf 109 probable and a third of a Heinkel He 111 destroyed during the Dieppe Raid on 19 August 1942. Having been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal on 4 September 1942, he was posted away on 23 September 1942, remaining on instructor duties for the rest of the war. (VIA W. MATUSIAC)

FEBRUARY 2014 45

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THE MYTH OF THE MOSQUITO Raid on Amiens Prison

MAIN PICTURE: By Mark Postlethwaite GAvA, this painting, entitled Pickard’s Last Moments, depicts Group Captain Percy Pickard DSO & Two Bars, DFC trying, unsuccessfully, to shake off the Focke-Wulf Fw190 of 7/JG 26 flown by Feldwebel Wilhelm Mayer north-east of Amiens during Operation Jericho on 18 February 1944.  Moments later, Mayer’s cannon shells blew off the Mosquito’s entire tail section causing the aircraft to crash just north of Saint-Gratien at 12.05 hours.  In the background the second wave of Mosquitoes is about to bomb the Amiens prison, totally unaware that Pickard, who was flying at the rear of the second wave, had been shot down. For more information on the painting, and the prints or posters available, please visit: www.posart.com TOP RIGHT: Group Captain P.C. Pickard pictured in 1942. (ALL IMAGES

COURTESY OF RED

G

ROUP CAPTAIN “Percy” Pickard ranks among the likes of Guy Gibson and Leonard Cheshire as icons of Bomber Command. He was born on 16 May 1915 at Handsworth, Sheffield and was educated at Framlingham College in Suffolk before gaining his RAF commission in 1937. By 1940 he was flying Wellington bombers with 99 Squadron. On 19 June 1940, Pickard was forced to ditch his severely damaged Wellington into the North Sea after being hit by flak over Germany. He and his crew were fortunate to vacate the stricken aircraft immediately after it had landed on the water, and were later picked up by a lifeboat. Strong leadership and determination were the hallmarks of “Pick’s” character, for which he was very much admired. These characteristics made him an obvious choice to play Squadron Leader Dickson in the popular 1941 film Target Tonight for Tonight. The legend of Pickard was created by the success of this film. He was a tall, fair-haired man, mild mannered with an ever-present pipe in his mouth. The archetypal understated British hero, with a stiff upper lip and a charming manner which endeared him to both the general public and the men he commanded. In 1942 he led the twelve Whitley bombers acting as troop carriers in Operation Biting, the raid on the German Radar installation at Bruneval. Later he began flying sorties for the SOE, dropping agents into occupied Europe. By December 1943 he had been

promoted to the rank of Group Captain and took over 140 Wing of the 2nd Tactical Air Force under the direct control of AOC 2 Group, Air Vice-Marshal Basil Embry. It was in this new role that he was briefed on a new and urgent mission code-named Ramrod 564.

THE AMIENS PRISON RAID It has long been accepted that the purpose of the daring attack on the prison in Amiens on 18 February 1944, was to free members of the Resistance, just hours before a mass execution. 

KITE UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

48 FEBRUARY 2014

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THE MYTH OF THE MISSING

MOSQUITO

Group Captain Percy Charles Pickard DSO & Two Bars, DFC led the famous raid by Mosquitoes on Amiens prison seventy years ago this month in February 1944. He did not survive the raid, it being suggested that he had taken the risk of looking for survivors of one of the Mosquitoes that had been shot down a few moments earlier, exposing his own aircraft to enemy fighters, with fatal consequences. This is still believed today, yet it is simply not true. So what really happened on Pickard’s last flight?

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FEBRUARY 2014 49

ABOVE: The position of the aircraft between 12.04 hours and 12.06 hours during Operation Jericho. The second wave is attacking and the Fw 190s of JG 26 have arrived on the scene, shooting down HX922 and one of the escorting Typhoons. The Film Production Unit Mosquito is about to commence its first photographic run over the prison.

Although this aim has frequently been called into question, and has now been shown to be a myth created by British Intelligence, the Mosquito crews carried out the attack in the unshakable belief that this was a lifeor-death rescue mission. Commonly known as Operation Jericho (a post-war name given to the raid), the plan was for two sections, both consisting of six Mosquitoes, to attack the prison in two waves to break down its walls and enable the inmates to escape. A third wave of six Mosquitoes would follow behind ready to be called in if any of the objectives had not been achieved by the first waves. The decision to call in the third wave was to be made by the pilot of a Film Production Unit (FPU) Mosquito who would make a number of runs over the prison after the dust had settled to assess the damage.

CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP When the plans for the attack were drawn up only days before the operation was due to take place, Air Vice-Marshal Basil Embry was detailed to lead the raid.

However, at the last moment Air Marshal Trafford Leigh–Mallory, Commanderin-Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, decided to forbid Embry from taking part in the raid. This was possibly because Embry knew too much about the plans for D-Day, which were already being discussed at senior level, or because he did not want to risk such a senior officer on what was a potentially very dangerous mission. Regardless of the reasons for this decision, Pickard was the natural replacement for Embry, and so he took over the senior officer’s role for the raid. Embry would usually have flown as No.2 in the lead formation, allowing the squadron leader to lead his men and giving Embry a little more freedom to observe the raid as a whole rather than concentrating on waypoints and so on. It is therefore natural to assume that Pickard would have initially planned to be in this slot. However, at the last moment the third wave’s orders were changed from “back up as directed” to “destroy the prison entirely”’ – which would necessarily result in a heavy loss of life.

LEFT: The first wave passes over the prison during the attack; Wing Commander Smith’s bombs have just landed near the main gate. This image was taken from the Mosquito flown by Pilot Officer M.N. Sparks, which means that the following aircraft was that of Flight Sergeant S. Jennings – the third aircraft over the prison. The bombs dropped in the first wave are yet to explode, the fuzes having been set with eleven seconds of delay.

ABOVE: French civilians pictured with the wreckage of Pickard’s Mosquito.

50 FEBRUARY 2014

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THE MYTH OF THE MISSING MOSQUITO Raid on Amiens Prison

ABOVE LEFT (OPPOSITE PAGE): Group Captain P.C. Pickard smoking his pipe in front of the aircraft in which he was killed on 18 February 1944 – de Havilland Mosquito FB Mark VI, HX922 ‘EG-F’, of 487 Squadron RNZAF. This picture was taken a few weeks earlier during a refuelling stop at Exeter, Devon, whilst on a daylight bombing raid on the power station at Pont du Chateau, France on 3 October 1943.

This clearly troubled Pickard as the burden of responsibility for ordering the killing of many innocent prisoners now lay with Flight Lieutenant Tony Wickham, the pilot of the FPU Mosquito, whilst he, the senior officer, would in theory be flying at full speed back to Britain at that crucial moment. Consequently, Pickard came up with a somewhat riskier plan to place himself in the number twelve position; at the very rear of the second wave. This position would enable him to take part in the bombing of the prison and allow him to break away from the others to see the combined effects of the first and second waves. This would also allow him to make the judgement as to whether the third wave, scheduled to arrive ten minutes later, would be required. Pickard explained how this would work to the other crews: “When I have dropped my bombs I shall pull off to one side and circle, probably just to the north of the prison. I can watch the attack from there; and I’ll tell you by radio. We’ll use the signals ‘red’ and ‘green’, repeated three times; so that if you hear me say ‘red, red, red’ you’ll know you’re being warned off and will go home without bombing. If I say ‘green, green, green’ it’s clear for you to go in and bomb.”

managed to take off and even fewer still managed to rendezvous with the Mosquitoes. It was clear that the latter were all but on their own and about to fly into an area of France littered with Luftwaffe fighter bases hosting the latest and deadliest of all German fighters at the time, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. The two waves of Mosquitoes crossed the Channel without incident and were soon well inland and heading for Amiens. Unfortunately the first wave misjudged a turning point at Albert, putting itself a few minutes behind schedule. Insignificant though this was in itself, it meant that the second wave, running on time, was now following too close and would arrive over the target just as the delayed action bombs of the first wave would detonate. Seeing all this in front of him, the leader of the second wave, Wing Commander “Black” Smith made a snap decision to take his six Mosquitoes in a wide orbit south of the route d’Albert to allow time for the first wave’s bombs to explode and the dust to settle. However, this decision, correct in every way, helped ensure that Pickard’s Mosquito, Mk.VI HX922 EG-F, flying at the formation's rear, fell into the gunsights of a roaming Fw 190 that happened to appear out of the clouds over Glissy aerodrome at that very moment.

OPERATION JERICHO On the morning of the raid, the weather took a hand in fate. Heavy snow showers were scattered across the length of southern England, sometimes reducing visibility to zero. The much needed fighter escort of three squadrons of Typhoons was pretty well grounded by the atrocious weather. Few pilots www.britainatwar.com

THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME Around midday on 18 February 1944, a training flight of Fw 190s from 7/JG 26 was airborne to the north of Amiens when it was redirected to investigate a raid heading towards them. The presence of the Luftwaffe had been

expected, but as already mentioned, only a handful of the fighter escort Typhoons had made it to the target area. Leading the German formation was Oberleutnant Waldemar Radener who ordered his men to drop below the cloud layer to look for the raiders. This was a good tactic, as it enabled them to make swift observations and would give them the element of surprise if they encountered any enemy aircraft. At 12.04 hours Radener and Feldwebel Wilhelm Mayer descended out of the cloud layer and spotted several 

ABOVE: A plan showing the course of HX922 in its final moments, showing the positions of the witnesses. TOP: The bodies of Pickard and Broadley were brought in from the fields by this group of French villagers.

FEBRUARY 2014 51

THE MYTH OF THE MISSING MOSQUITO Raid on Amiens Prison THE EYEWITNESSES

ABOVE: Pictured in 2007, Mr Descamps, the last witness to seee the combat that led to the loss of HX922, stands on the spot where he had been on 18 February 1944. RIGHT: LAC Albert Sullivan and Marie Yvonne tending Pickard’s and Broadley’s graves in 1945. Note the prison building and walls that can be seen in the background.

Mosquitoes and Typhoons beneath them. Radener quickly slipped unseen behind the Typhoon of Flying Officer Renaud of 174 Squadron and shot it down without the other RAF pilots even noticing. Mayer, meanwhile, latched onto six Mosquitoes below him and naturally selected the last aircraft in the formation to “pick-off”. He subsequently reported that his quarry broke away from the formation and headed towards QuerrieuFréchencourt; the chase was on. Inside the Mosquito, Pickard, and his navigator, Flight Lieutenant John Broadley, found themselves in an impossible position. Having been in a slow turn at the rear of the formation, Pickard’s only option was to jettison his bombs and open his throttles in an attempt to outpace the deadly Fw 190 now on his tail. The only way to build up speed was to press ever lower and within seconds the two aircraft were skimming over the snow covered fields and woods east of Amiens.

THE AMIENS RAID Secrets Revealed THIS ARTICLE has been compiled from the detailed account of the events before, during and after the Amiens raid that was completed by J.P. Ducellier. It took him many years of painstaking detective work, on both sides of the Channel, to unravel what happened on 18 February 1944 – all of which is described in The Amiens Raid: Secrets Revealed. Published by Red Kite, for more information or to order a copy, please visit: www.wingleader.co.uk

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Below the aerial activity, on the road from Querrieu to Saint-Gratien, four horses led by Gilbert Descamps were quietly pulling an old farm cart. Gilbert was 22-years-old and had managed to avoid the deportations to Germany the previous year, continuing instead to work on the family farm on rue Cavee in the village of Querrieu. Progress was slow due to the icy road and Gilbert did not want to rush the horses. Having stopped to observe a large formation of aircraft flying to the south of him, (probably the second wave), a few minutes later he was stopped again in his tracks by the sound of gunfire. Looking to the south he saw an aircraft approaching at low level followed by another smaller aircraft. The smaller aircraft was firing tracer rounds and shells which were creating a striated smoke pattern through the sky. Several of these rounds struck the area where the horses were and exploded. In a split second Gilbert clambered underneath the cart for protection. Back in the Mosquito, Pickard saw the tracer shells explode on the ground in front of him and desperately pulled

the Mosquito into a hard left turn near the village of Saint-Gratien. However, the Focke-Wulf was far more agile and within seconds had regained its position less than 150 metres behind Pickard’s aircraft. At that range, Mayer could not miss. He carefully lined up the large Mosquito in his sights and opened fire again. This time his cannon shells struck home, bright flashes peppered the Mosquito’s tail section and the combat was over, less than a minute after Meyer had broken cloud cover. Back on the ground farm labourer Jacques Bruaux was cutting wood in a small thicket north of the Bois du

Château when he was distracted by the sound of aircraft engines. He saw an aircraft coming from the south pursued by another and heard the sound of gunfire. Jacques looked on in amazement as the leading aircraft lost its entire tail section and disintegrated. Moments later, Jacques saw a large cloud of black smoke billowing into the freezing air from Donchel Wood. As the sound of the second aircraft’s engine faded into the distance, Jacques Bruaux and his friends ran to the scene of the crash. Passing the crossroads and then over the fields, they saw fragments from the Mosquito lying strewn about the area. The tail section was located on a slight slope and further on they came upon the main impact point of the front section. The wreckage was on fire and the heat was intense. No one could get close to the ’plane and they withdrew some distance when ammunition started to explode. After several minutes, the sounds of detonating ammunition ceased and the villagers moved towards the inferno. Although the wreckage was still in flames, the locals managed with some difficulty to remove two bodies from

the fire. Both of the occupants were badly burnt, but amongst the wreckage a scorched driving licence bearing the name Alan Broadley was recovered, providing final proof that this was the crash site of HX922.

THE AFTERMATH Back at the prison, the Mosquitoes of the first and second waves had made their carefully choreographed attacks on the prison with remarkable accuracy. The walls were breached in several places and Tony Wickham observed prisoners escaping across the snow-covered fields that surrounded the prison. www.britainatwar.com

Wickham continued to orbit the area, listening out for code-words from Pickard that would either call-in the third wave or send it home without bombing. As minutes ticked by and nothing was heard from Pickard, Wickham assumed the responsibility for the third wave attack and called it off, clearly to him the objectives had been achieved.

A LEGEND WAS CREATED To continue the cover story regarding the real purpose of the raid, British Intelligence produced a press release which detailed the heroic exploits of Pickard and his men in knocking down the walls and releasing the prisoners. To be fair, at the time, the exact circumstances of Pickard and Broadley’s crash were unclear. The Mosquito crews would have assumed Pickard bombed the prison as none of them saw him break away or get shot down. In fact some of them reported seeing him orbiting to the north after the attack, clearly assuming that the photographic Mosquito was Pickard’s aircraft. It was stated at the time by Air Commodore D.F.W. Atcherley, as recorded in Air Ministry Bulletin No.16106, that Pickard had broken away from the formation to investigate the crash site of Squadron Leader McRitchie who had just been brought down by anti-aircraft fire. “He must have been well aware that in doing so he was taking a chance on enemy fighters,” wrote Atcherley. “While pre-occupied watching the ground in search of survivors of the first crash he was probably bounced.” This was entirely imaginary as McRitchie was not shot down until after Pickard had been attacked but it added much to the legend of the Amiens raid and so was not officially discredited.

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Thus the official story of Operation Jericho has Percy Pickard bombing the prison and then orbiting the area to assess the results before falling to the guns of a Fw 190. Even to this day there are still illustrations being produced that show Pickard’s “F-Freddie” racing over the prison buildings and dropping bombs, whilst it is frequently stated that Pickard was killed during the closing stages of the action. However, by 12.07 hours, when the second wave bombed, the wreckage of HX922 was burning fiercely in a wood several miles away. Evidence of this timing comes from several sources, including a battered and burned wristwatch found in the wreckage with its hands stopped at precisely 12.05 hours. The Fw 190 pilot also later reported that his victory occurred at 12.05 hours. Furthermore the British ‘Y Service’ picked up a message at 12.07 hours reporting two victories. Given that pilots would not instantly get on the radio, as they were still in the combat area, these must relate to Pickard’s Mosquito and the 174 Squadron Typhoon. McRitchie was not hit until after 12.10 hours. A few days after the raid, the Germans took the airmen’s bodies away from Saint-Gratien and buried them in SaintPierre Cemetery in Amiens, where they lie to this day. As you stand at the immaculately maintained headstones, the imposing walls of the Amiens prison can be seen through the trees just a few hundred yards away. It is ironic to reflect that despite the continuing legend and myth surrounding Operation Jericho, the closest “Pick” actually came to the prison was when the Germans laid him to rest alongside his navigator and friend Alan Broadley, both men victims of the cruel and fickle hand of fate. 

RECOMMENDED FOR THE VICTORIA CROSS

At one point the simple wooden cross marking Pickard’s grave was marked VC DSO DFC Bar. It is said that he was recommended for the Victoria Cross by both the French Government and Lord Londonderry. The award was initially considered, but AVM Basil Embry refused to support it. He claimed that the raid was a normal precision attack and as such did not warrant such a high award. The official reason given for the refusal was that Pickard had already been decorated in line with other officers with similar achievements and that press reports had exaggerated the importance of the raid – something the RAF themselves had been guilty of. BELOW: The crash site of HX922 at Saint-Gratien today.

FEBRUARY 2014 53

THE RAF ON THE AIR Flight Sergeant Ray Loveitt MAIN PICTURE: Mark XI aerial torpedoes being taken out on trolleys towards a Bristol Beaufort Mk.I. This aircraft, L4516, OA-W, a 22 Squadron Beaufort, was destroyed shortly after this photograph was taken when it stalled after a night take-off from North Coates and hit the ground near Marshfield, detonating the mine it was carrying. Note the Swordfish which can just be seen taking off in the background.

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HE LEAD ship of her class, the heavy cruiser Deutschland was laid down at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel in February 1929. Launched on 19 May 1931, she was commissioned two years later in April 1933. In 1940, she was renamed Lützow Lützow, after the Admiral Hipper class heavy cruiser of that name had been handed over to the Soviet Union. The outbreak of war in 1939 found Lützow (as she would soon be known) at sea in the Atlantic with orders to commence operations against Allied merchant shipping. Damaged during

the invasion of Norway the following year, Lützow was returning to Germany to undergo repair when, on 11 April 1940, it was spotted in the Kattegat by the Royal Navy submarine HMS Spearfish. Lieutenant Commander John Hay Forbes attacked the heavy cruiser; one torpedo destroyed Lützow’s stern, causing it to collapse and nearly fall off, as well as removing the warship’s steering gear. Lützow was towed back to port and decommissioned for repairs; the latter took nearly a year to complete. Re-commissioned for service on 31 March 1941 the Kriegsmarine planned

to despatch Lützow on a commerce raiding operation that had originally been planned for the previous year. Her sister Admiral Scheer was to join her for the operation, and on 12 June 1941, she departed for Norway with an escort of destroyers. Within hours she would find herself under attack again, this time at the hands of the RAF. An RAF account of the service of Coastal Command published in 1942 describes what happened next: “On 12th June, 1941, a Blenheim on reconnaissance emerging from clouds some miles south of the Lister Light saw,

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(WW2IMAGES)

During the Second World War, RAF personnel regularly described their activities on the radio for listeners of the BBC. These broadcasts described their experiences in their own words and in effect provided the human stories behind the official communiqués. Each month we present one of these narratives, an account selected from over 280 broadcasts which were, at the time, given anonymously.

4 PART

54 FEBRUARY 2014

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1,000 feet below, four or five enemy destroyers screening a much larger vessel, coloured light grey, steaming north-west. “The larger vessel was almost certainly the ‘Lutzow,’ and it seems probable that she had put out with the object of raiding our commerce in the Atlantic. In addition to her destroyer escort, the pocket-battleship had an escort of Me. 109 and Me. 110 fighters. The Blenheim slipped back into the clouds. It was just before midnight. “On receipt of its message a striking force of Beauforts was sent from a

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Scottish aerodrome to attack with torpedoes. At 2.20 in the morning of the 13th June – it must be remembered that in those latitudes, at that time of the year, there is almost no darkness – one of the Beauforts attacked the enemy. It flew low, crossed just above one of the protecting destroyers, and released its torpedo at a range of 700 yards. As the aircraft broke away the air gunner and wireless operator both saw a column of water leap from the ‘Lutzow’ amidships, and this was followed by a dense cloud of smoke.” The “striking force” mentioned in the RAF account consisted of Bristol Beauforts of 42 Squadron based at RAF Leuchars and a detachment of Beauforts of 22 Squadron from Wick. One of the 42 Squadron pilots was Flight Sergeant Ray Loveitt. Loveitt subsequently gave the following broadcast on the BBC: “Friday, June 13th was not a lucky

day for the German Navy. A Coastal Command Beaufort aircraft, of which I was the pilot, obtained a direct hit with a torpedo on a German pocket battleship as it was slinking out past Norway, and sent it, with its attendant destroyers, back home. “When it was getting near midnight on Thursday we had orders to push off with other aircraft from the squadron. Somebody mentioned that it would soon be the 13th, and when my wireless operator [Sergeant C.T.W. Downing] found that we had to take pigeon container No.13 he said, ‘We’re bound to be lucky’. “Carrying our torpedo slung beneath us, we started off in formation. There was a bit of moon, but it was partly obscured and shone through the haze only occasionally. In some patches of cloud you could see hardly anything, but it was fairly light in the clear 

TOP RIGHT: The crew of Beaufort L9939, AW-W, are pictured gathered by the nose of their aircraft at RAF Leuchars the morning after their attack on Lützow. From left to right, they are: Sergeant C.T.W. Downing (wireless operator); Flight Sergeant R.H. Loveitt (pilot); Sergeant A.H.A. Morris RCAF (observer); and Sergeant P. Wallace-Pannell (air gunner). (IMPERIAL WAR

MUSEUM; MH7655)

ABOVE: Armourers load a Mark XII aerial torpedo into a Bristol Beaufort Mk.I of 42 Squadron at RAF Leuchars, Fife, during 1941. (HMP) LEFT: Escorted by destroyers, Lützow is pictured underway off Norway during operations in 1940. (BUNDESARCHIV, BILD

101II-MN-1025-13/ZELL/ CC-BY-SA)

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FEBRUARY 2014 55

THE RAF ON THE AIR Flight Sergeant Ray Loveitt RIGHT: An aerial reconnaissance photograph of Lützow in dry dock at the Deutsche Werft shipyard at Kiel following the attack by Flight Sergeant Ray Loveitt; Lützow is indicated by the letter ‘A’, whilst an unidentified liner is at ‘B’. Strips of netting are stretched from the dockside over the decks and lower parts of the superstructure. (HMP)

BELOW: A badlydamaged Lützow photographed in Kiel following a previous attack to that made by Flight Sergeant Ray Loveitt and his crew. The victor on this occasion was the submarine HMS Spearfish, which torpedoed the heavy cruiser whilst it was returning, already damaged, following its involvement in Operation Weserübung, the German code-name for the invasions of Denmark and Norway.

(BUNDESARCHIV; BILD 101II-MN-1038-06/ MEISINGER/CC-BY-SA)

spaces. We were well over the North Sea when midnight came. We were flying pretty high as we approached the coast of southern Norway and found several gaps in the clouds where the moon was breaking through. “You could see the surface of the water and, as we came into one of these clearings, we suddenly spotted a formation of enemy warships away down under the starboard wing. The white washes trailing behind them caught our eyes first, and then we saw the ships’ small black slim shapes. They were arranged in a very nice formation with the pocket battleship in the middle and her five escorting destroyers dispersed around her. “One destroyer was right ahead of the battleship and there were two more destroyers on each side, making a pretty effective screen. We dived to get into position from which to attack. We came down to a few hundred feet above the sea and flew at right angles across the stem of two destroyers bringing up at the rear. That put us on the broadside of the formation. We made a right-about turn to starboard and came straight back on its beam. “There was not much time to think about attacks. One destroyer was right in our way and I had to skid round its stern to get a suitable angle to drop. We were close enough to the destroyer to see the design of its camouflage, outlines of the deck fittings, and even the rail. The next second I put the nose of the aircraft round and saw the battleship in my sight. I pressed a button on the throttle which released the torpedo and away it went.

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“As soon as the torpedo had gone I made a sharp turn to port and opened my engine flat out. I was expecting a barrage of flak at any moment. The navigator beside me was looking back at the ship saying, “It’s coming, it’s coming”. “But fortunately the flak did not come, not even when, for one unpleasant moment, we found ourselves in a vertical turn round one of the destroyers where we should have been easy meat. I think our attack must have taken them completely by surprise. All this time the torpedo was running on its course and really only a few seconds had elapsed. “As we flew clear from the ship, the rear gunner and the wireless operator shouted together over the inter-com: ‘You’ve hit it. There’s a great column of water going up, and dirty white smoke.’ “I flew round in a circle to see for myself, and sure enough there was plenty of smoke and a patch of foam on the ship’s track. Naturally I didn’t want to hang around too long, so when we were satisfied with the results of our

attack, we made a signal reporting it. “When we got back home we heard that other aircraft had found the German force after we had attacked it. The ships had stopped by then and were trying to hide themselves behind the smokescreen made by the destroyer. Still later we learned that the formation had turned back to the Skagerrak and was limping home at reduced speed.” Unbeknown to Flight Sergeant Loveitt at the time, Lützow was picked up again later by Blenheims of Coastal Command, which, together with further Beauforts, shadowed her for many hours. By this time she and her escort had turned about and were making for the Skagerrak at reduced speed. The single torpedo hit on Lützow disabled her electrical system and rendered the ship motionless. The crew carried out emergency repairs that allowed her to return to Germany. The repair work in Kiel, undertaken at the same Deutsche Werke shipyard in which she had been constructed, lasted for six months. For his part in the attack on Lützow, Loveitt was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. The announcement in The London Gazette of 24 June 1941, stated: “One night in June, 1941, this airman was the pilot of one of a formation of nine Beauforts which carried out a torpedo attack against a pocket battleship, screened by five destroyers, sailing off the south-west coast of Norway. “After maintaining close formation for over two hours in most difficult conditions, Flight Sergeant Loveitt came out of low rain cloud near the enemy force. He skilfully manoeuvred his aircraft and dropped his torpedo from inside the destroyer screen, scoring a direct hit on the battleship. The execution of this brilliant attack was so sudden that the enemy was taken completely by surprise ... He has shown the greatest courage and efficiency.”  www.britainatwar.com

FeBRUARY 2014

Tank Times

Published by The Tank MUSeUM, Bovington, Dorset, UK, BH20 6JG

Tel: +44 (0) 1929 405 096

FIRST WORLD WAR CeNTeNARY AT The Tank MUSeUM

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FROM The ARChIveS

Janice Tait The main role of the Archive & Library and the Supporting Collection Study Centre is to make the thousands of documents, photographs and Supporting Collection objects accessible both to the public and to the Museum.

As many of you will already be aware, 2014 marks the Centenary of the outbreak of the First World War. The Tank Museum has always had a strong offering when it comes to this infamous period, with an extensive collection of original First World War tanks and the most famous of all ‘Little Willie’ – the first tank ever made. We also have our popular walk-through trench experience, starting at the recruiting office and ending at the front line, giving a taste of what life was like on the Western Front. As we move into 2014 the Museum is looking deeper in to the birth of armoured warfare and the people who made it happen. Charting the history of the move from horses to mechanised warfare, visitors will have the opportunity to explore our new Warhorse to Horsepower exhibition, which opens at the beginning of April.

Inside… ● The hORNSBY TRACKLAYeRS RS ● Deborah ● WhAT’S ON ● AWARD FOR LITTLe WILLIe ● WIN A RIDe IN TIgeR

We will be also be hosting a landmark event on 4th August 2014, marking the date 100 years earlier when Britain declared war. Our commemoration event will include an arena display featuring some of the most iconic vehicles of the First World War and beyond, including our replica Mark IV and German A7V. Visitors will also be able to witness an air display from the Great War Display Team and a living history encampment. While inside the Museum there will be an extensive programme of brand new talk and tours. Curator David Willey said, “With the anniversaries over the next four years, The Tank Museum, along with other public outlets, will present many more opportunities for the public to engage with the subject. “We hope there will be a chance to gain a more balanced picture of the period and what those across society went through, from the soldier in the new tank to the woman working in a factory making that tank. “With such a wide ranging, powerful and important subject it is vital that the spectrum of the war and its consequences is covered, taking on board both the burden of sorrow for the sacrifices made and the achievement of innovation, perseverance and belief by the British people in what was termed the ‘War for Civilisation’.”

The Tank MUSeUM - The WORLD’S BeST COLLeCTION OF TANKS An Independent Museum and Registered Charity No 1102661

Our two main tasks, which take up the majority of our time, are cataloguing of all the items, so that they are accessible on Tracer, the Museum’s Collections Management System; and answering enquiries from the public (from every corner of the world) and from Museum staff. Last year we answered nearly 3000 enquiries ranging from very simple questions to quite complicated, time-consuming ones. Because, as a charity with limited resources, this takes up more and more of our time we are planning to introduce a fee for answering enquiries this year, which may free up more time to sort and catalogue the collection and hence make more of the collection available. Each of our staff help visitors with their research, but in addition they have specific responsibilities, which include recording all items that are donated to the Museum, scanning, cataloguing, sorting documents, photographs and objects and of course answering enquiries. Our volunteers also have specific projects such as sorting plans, photographing the collection, cleaning objects, copying photographic donations, scanning Continued on page 2...

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FROM The ARChIveS Continued… and transcribing documents, converting videos to DVD and adding data to our catalogue records. Donations are an important factor in the continuing discovery and historical understanding of armoured warfare and Regimental history, but also provide an insight into ordinary people who found themselves in the thick of war. Furthermore, they provide a continuous source of material to refresh Museum displays. The documents in the collection range from vehicle manuals and spare parts lists to personal information. As a Place of Deposit for the National Archives, we are often given collections that they have digitised and no longer have any use for. A recent donation was of boxes and boxes of ledgers, which showed the service history of anyone who transferred in or out of the Royal Tank Corps during the interwar period, including T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). In partnership with Findmypast these have now been digitised and will be available on their website shortly. We receive donations from many different areas, including the public, the Ministry of Defence and defence companies. For instance, The Tank Corps Berlin Flag and the Rhine Flag are particularly unique acquisitions, which were presented to the Regiment in 1923 by General Elles, along with the Cambrai flag which is on display in the Museum. The ¼ million photographs that have been scanned include all armoured vehicles, group photographs from all eras and many albums both private and personal. At present we are also scanning and captioning, in-house, all our collection of First World War documents ready for the First World War centenaries. These include personal papers, official documents and First World War Tank Corps Battalion War Diaries.

LITTLe WILLIe geTS BIg AWARD John Wood (left), Chairman of the Institution’s Engineering Heritage Committee presents Tank Museum Curator, David Willey with the plaque for Little Willie.

Little Willie, displayed in pride of place in The Tank Story Hall, has been honoured by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers with an Engineering Heritage Award. Weighing 18 tons, with an intended crew of two plus four gunners, Little Willie – built by William Foster and Co. in Lincoln - was the first completed tank prototype in history. However, although the completed vehicle was running by the end of 1915, a new design was already under construction, meaning Little Willie never saw combat. The tank will stand alongside previous award winners like E-Type Jaguar, Tower Bridge and the Vulcan Bomber as an example of exceptional British engineering. John Wood, Chairman of the Institution’s Engineering Heritage Committee, said, “This award celebrates Little Willie’s status as the world’s first tank, but is also in recognition of the excellent work of The Tank Museum in preserving this vehicle for generations to come.”

The lucky winner will be able to take a ride in the infamous Tiger 131 around our arena this coming Tiger Day, on 5th April 2014. 2nd prize is a ride in the Leopard and 3rd prize a ride in the Centurion, each to take place this coming Tiger Day. To enter the raffle simply fill out the stubs of the tickets included in this edition and send them back to us at the address on the tickets, with the money enclosed. If you would like to purchase additional tickets to the five included then please see our website tankmuseum.org for details. Tickets are £5 each. Please see the raffle tickets and tankmuseum.org, for terms and conditions.

gALLOpINg ALONg

This new exhibition has been the result of years of work by a team of Tank Museum staff and will be the centrepiece of our Centenary Commemoration activity.

In April 2014 The Tank Museum will launch a major new exhibition, ‘Warhorse to Horsepower.’

Exhibition Officer, Sarah Lambert, said, “As we make our way into 2014, the exhibition is really starting to take shape. The Independent, Peerless Armoured Car, Light Mark IIA and Hornsby Tractor have all been moved into place, while the hall itself has been painted and the graphic panels installed”. The display examines the role of horses before, during and after the First World War. The key emphasis will be on the British Army’s transition from horsed Cavalry to armoured vehicles and the reasons behind this major shift in land warfare.

Next year we will be building on the work already completed with the hope that people will continue to donate their wonderful collections to us.

With the original vehicles and model horses, a host of interactive displays and dramatic imagery; it is hoped ‘Warhorse to Horsepower’ will have a multigenerational appeal and do justice to the experience of both men and horses between 1914 and 1939.

Janice Tait Librarian and Archives Manager

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We are holding a raffle to give you the chance to win a ride in Tiger 131!

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We have recently launched a new Online shop on The Tank Museum website. A variety of tank and History related objects are on offer, including our full Tiger tank range, and we are adding new products all the time. It is a work in progress, so if you have any suggestions as to what you might like to see available please contact Visitor Services on [email protected]. The shop ships to all corners of the globe, so visit tankmuseum.org for all of your tank memorabilia needs - unfortunately the exhibits are not for sale!

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D51 DeBOR Ah

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NA MINg DeBORAh

by David Fletcher

by Chris Copson Try this experiment; ask any ten people you know whether they have heard of the Battle of Cambrai. Provided those concerned are not serving or past RTR soldiers, I can pretty well guarantee blank incomprehension – the Somme, Gallipoli, Passchendaele, yes, but Cambrai, “What was that, then?”. It is a great pity and a symptom of the general ignorance of the conduct of the War beyond the “Blackadderised” version of senseless slaughter, muddy trenches and stupid and callous senior officers. Cambrai, which took place in November and December 1917, should be more widely known about. Cambrai was not only a great tank battle, the British Army deploying some 470 mainly Mark IV machines on a frontage only about eight miles wide, but also, in the assault phase, a great “all arms” affair; cooperation between infantry, tanks artillery and aircraft demonstrating a new way to wage war that would reap dividends in the last year of the War.

infantry support and a German artillery battery, firing over open sights, was able to inflict severe casualties as the tanks crested the ridge. Deborah, a Mark IV Female of 12 Section, 12th Company, D Battalion, was one of a number of vehicles in the second wave of the attack tasked with attacking the Hindenburg Support line west of Flesquières. Commanded by 2/Lt. Frank Heap, she entered the village, firing into the ruins to suppress the defenders. As she left the shelter of the village she was hit by several enemy artillery rounds and five of her eight crew were killed. Lt. Heap and the two remaining crew members were able to retire back to British lines. He was subsequently awarded the Military Cross for his gallant actions. Deborah was carefully hoisted out of the ground near Flesquières

Uniquely amongst First World War battlefields, Cambrai has a memorial in the form of a tank. D51 “Deborah”, knocked out by enemy artillery on the edge of the village of Flesquières and subsequently buried, was located and recovered by the excellent M. Philippe Gorcynski, battlefield historian and Deborah’s guardian. She is currently housed in a barn in the village, close by the graves of five of her crew. The story of the Battle of Cambrai is too complex to recount here; suffice it to say that when tanks with their accompanying infantry rolled forward on the morning of November 20th, preceded by a walking barrage, surprise was total and a hole some six miles wide was torn in the defences of the Hindenburg Line. The initial attack met with overwhelming success; only on the Flesquières Ridge was serious and determined opposition encountered. Here the tanks had become separated from their

Citation T. 2nd Lieut. Heap, Frank Gustave, ‘D’ Battalion Awarded MC

In the Cambrai operations near Flesquières on November 20, 1917; he fought his tank with great gallantry and skill, leading the infantry on to five objectives. He proceeded through the village and engaged a battery of enemy field guns from which his tank received five direct hits, killing four of his crew. Although then behind German lines he collected the remainder of his crew, and conducted them in good order back to our own lines in spite of heavy machine-gun and snipers’ fire.

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Deborah then disappeared for over seventy years, but local tradition persisted of “ a tank pushed into a hole”, supposedly by Russian POWs under German command. In 1998, after six years research, Philippe Gorcynski located and excavated her and, after a brief sojourn under a tarpaulin, she is currently residing in a barn on the Rue du Moulin, Flesquières. It is more likely that she was in fact buried by a Tank Corps recovery unit in a clear up operation, having first been stripped of anything useful. In October, I visited Deborah in the company of fellow staff and volunteers from The Tank Museum, where we were received with great courtesy and enthusiasm by M. Gorcynski. None of those present came away untouched; looking at the massive hole torn in the front of the tank by an exploding artillery round throws into stark perspective the fate of many First World War tank crewmen and the qualities involved in going to war in such a vehicle.

In 1998 Philippe Gorcynski from Cambrai found a Mark IV female tank buried beneath a field in the village of Flesquières, on the Cambrai battlefield. The tank was badly damaged but still recognisably a Mark IV so, at great expense, Philippe had the tank exhumed and placed on display. The question then was, what tank was it? Research narrowed the possibilities down to two, D41 Devil II or D51 Deborah. Second Lieutenant Jones of Devil II was buried in Flesquières Cemetery, but Second Lieutenant Heap of Deborah appeared to have survived. Shortly after I returned home from France after viewing the tank I was contacted by a friend of mine who was then commanding the ranges at Eskmeals in Cumbria. One of his civilian staff was the grandson of a Tank Corps officer who had been awarded the Military Cross, and if I would send a copy of the medal citation he would reciprocate with a photograph of his grandfather’s tank. Nothing could be easier and the citation was duly sent off, a few days later back came the photograph and comparing it with a shot I had taken of Philippe’s tank it was obvious that the damage was the same; not similar but identical, it had to be the same tank. On the back of the print was written ‘Mr Heap’s bus’, which told us at once that it was D51, Deborah that Philippe had found. The tank commanded at Cambrai by Second Lieutenant Frank Heap. I sent a copy of the photo off to Philippe in France and it seems to me now that no sooner had I stuck the envelope down than the phone on my desk started ringing, and jumping about all over the place. It was Philippe, very excited, telling me that I had accurately identified the tank as D51 Deborah so I had obviously been correct. Since then we have found a photo of the tank being buried and you can read the number D51 on the fuel tank at the back so now there is no doubt at all. The tank uncovered in Flesquières is D51, Deborah.

Deborah herself is now a Monument Historique and it is hoped that a museum will be built to house and conserve her on a patch of land on the edge of the village; resting within a few metres of the graves of her crew in the Flesquières Hill British Cemetery.

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Saturday 8/2

Evening Lecture by Kate Adie Andrew Sawyer At the end of last year a group of Tank Museum employees, including myself, were lucky enough to be taken on a First World War Battlefields Tour by our Education Officer, Chris Copson. We focused on the areas around the Somme and Ypres Salient, visiting war graves, memorials and trench systems. Looking at the rows of white headstones and huge bomb craters was a poignant reminder of the sacrifices made and the sheer scale of the first truly mechanised war. As we stand on the brink of the centenary commemorations, national debate on how we remember the First World War is heating up. Differing interpretations from historians, politicians and actors alike all serve to illustrate the evergrowing significance of the role that public institutions will play in setting the narrative of remembrance in the coming four years. Through existing displays and new ones it is our intention to engage the public with the stories of real people who fought and died during the war, dismissing some of the myths that have grown up in the preceding one-hundred years, and enable people, we hope, to reach a more balanced view of a war that is both significant to the national consciousness and our own history as a tank museum. This year also marks the seventieth anniversary of D-Day, in which tanks like our Sherman DD played a crucial part, offering further cause to hark back to the innovation, sacrifice and bravery of our forebears. As ever, we look forward to welcoming you to The Tank Museum to see history first-hand.

Andrew Sawyer Editor

David Fletcher driving the Hornsby Tractor in 1984

hORNSBY TRACKLAYeRS by David Fletcher

With 2014 fast approaching and the centenary of the Great War this may well be an appropriate time to look at some of the unusual vehicles that in some respects anticipated the tank. None probably more so than the series of vehicles built or modified by Richard Hornsby and Sons of Grantham that were fitted with tracks to the design of David Roberts. David Roberts became managing director of Richard Hornsby in 1904. He had joined the firm in 1895 because of his interest in oil powered internal combustion engines which Hornsby had pioneered, based on the work of Stuart Ackroyd. Roberts also devised a system of caterpillar tracks, the first to be applied successfully in Britain, which he began by fitting to a singlecylinder, oil-engined tractor built by Hornsby in 1897. Although it was aimed principally at the agricultural market and potentially for Colonial use, the tractor attracted the attention of the military and members of the Mechanical Transport Committee inspected it in 1905. Also in 1905, Hornsby built a huge wheeled tractor for the Army, rather like a steam traction engine but powered by a two cylinder Ackroyd heavy oil engine. It was converted to a tracklayer in 1907, using the David Robert’s system and in this guise was tested as an artillery tractor. It lasted until 1914, when it was broken up. Again in 1907, Hornsby adapted a 40hp Rochet-Schneider car, their first petrol fuelled vehicle. With a top speed of 15mph it was quite lively and, at the suggestion of Major Donohue, the Army’s Inspector of Motor Transport it was used to tow a tracked trailer mounting a Dummy Gun at the Aldershot Royal Review. A newspaper, the Morning Leader said of it, “Here is the germ of the land fighting unit when men will fight behind iron walls”, in May 1908, very prophetic.

Legendary BBC War Correspondent, Kate Adie talks at The Tank Museum and tells the story of the First World War years through the eyes of women. Tickets £10 per person.

In 1905 the War Office ordered another tracked vehicle from Hornsby. Known as the Little Caterpillar, it was powered by a six-cylinder engine but was otherwise a smaller version of the 1907 tractor. It still survives in The Tank Museum collection and is essentially in working order. All this time, apart from limited interest shown by the Army, Richard Hornsby and Sons enjoyed no commercial success with their tracklayers at all. Then, in 1909 they received their first commercial order. It was from a mining concern in the Yukon Territory, who wanted a steam powered engine, for which Hornsby had to approach William Foster & Co of Lincoln since they no longer built steamers. It is not known how well the engine performed in the Yukon, if at all, but the chassis of it, complete with tracks, still survives in Canada. After that, unable to get any further business, Hornsby sold all their patent rights on tracks to the Holt Corporation in the USA, reputedly for £4,000. In 1915 Major Thomas Tulloch, an Army officer with considerable engineering experience, suggested a massive Landship, based on two steam powered Hornsby crawlers operating back to back and fitted with armour plate and cannon as his answer to the problems of trench warfare. Tulloch had the right idea but he based it on out of date technology. In fact, no existing, commercial track system would do. The only answer was to design a new and much stronger type of track for the fighting tanks. The Hornsby Tractor features in our new Warhorse to Horsepower exhibition, opening on 3rd April 2014.

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The Tank MUSeUM - The WORLD’S BeST COLLeCTION OF TANKS An Independent Museum and Registered Charity No 1102661

Saturday 15/2 – Sunday 23/2

February Half Term Visitors will have the chance to explore the Home Front as it was during the Second World War. Children go free.*

Saturday 5/4

Tiger Day 2014 Due to popular demand, The Tank Museum is hosting another Tiger Day; the essential experience for fans of the legendary Tiger tank.

Saturday 28/6 - Sunday 29/6

TANKFEST 2014# Tickets are available now, as the World’s best display of moving armour returns to The Tank Museum. #You may not use your Annual Pass for re-admission on these dates. *See our website for details.

EARLY ON the afternoon of Tuesday, 29 September 1942, Junkers Ju 52 3/m NQ-AV, which had the werke nummer 5480, took off from Mersah Matruh on a routine flight to return to the then German-held airfield at Tobruk. The pilot was Oberfeldwebel Kulpe, whilst the aircraft’s commander was Leutnant Horst Willborn. As it headed out over the Western Desert, the Ju 52, from 10 Flieger Kompanie/Luftnachrichten Regiment 40, and its crew, soon had the bad luck of encountering a trio of Supermarine Spitfires, a type which had only recently been introduced into service in the North African theatre. Unfortunately for the Luftwaffe crew, all three Allied airmen were experienced and successful pilots. The Spitfire formation was led by 23-year-old Squadron Leader Pete Matthews who had taken command of 145 Squadron at the end of August 1942. A veteran of both the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain, by the latter’s end Matthews had become a flight commander with a “score” of 3½ confirmed victories. Just a couple of days earlier, on 11 September 1942, Matthews had shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109F during a combat west of El Alamein. It was a victory which, combined with his other successes, saw him achieve “Ace” status. Two days later, on the 13th, he was at the controls of Spitfire Vc BP978, ZX-Z. His No.2 on this occasion was 27-year-old Flight Lieutenant John “Crash” Curry who hailed from Dallas, Texas. Curry was an experienced barnstorming pilot and when war broke out in 1939 he had promptly volunteered for service in the RCAF, arriving in the UK in 1941. Curry later joined 601 (County of London) Squadron, flying a Spitfire from the deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle to reinforce Malta where he soon claimed his first victory. When the squadron moved to Egypt Curry became a flight commander and began scoring regularly. When he encountered the Ju 52 on 29 September 1942, at the controls of BR469/UF-B, he had already taken his personal “score” to four confirmed victories.

IMAGE OF

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The final member of the triumvirate that day was 20-year-old Flight Sergeant Ray Sherk. A Canadian, Sherk had completed a successful tour with 129 Squadron flying sweeps from RAF Westhampnett, a period during which he shot down two German fighters and had been commissioned. He was, in time, posted to the Middle East. Following his arrival in Egypt, Sherk had joined 601 Squadron; on 29 September he was at the controls of BR392/UF-P. The three Spitfires had lifted off from the patch of desert optimistically named Landing Ground 92 at 13.40 hours. The intention had been to attack a train reported on the railway to the west of Mersah Matruh. Whilst they did not locate the train, they did spot the Ju 52 flown by Kulpe heading westwards at just 200 feet near to a railway junction known as Charing Cross. It was Sherk who opened the attack. “I was flying in the echelon port position and was therefore the first to attack,” he later recalled. “There was some ineffective return fire from the rear of the Junkers as I approached the left rear quarter and the target turned to the right. As I fired, the Junkers’ starboard wing and fuselage burst into flames and as I overflew the pilot attempted a landing on the sand. Curry and Matthews followed up the attack. Matthews then radioed instructions to leave the area. As we left, fire and black smoke from the Ju 52 was clearly visible in my rear view mirror.” Unfortunately for Ray Sherk, on the return flight his Spitfire ran out of fuel and he had to force land behind enemy lines at the eastern end of the Qattara Depression in north-west Egypt. He was duly captured, going on to be held in prisoner of war camps in Italy (the story of his subsequent escape and return to Allied units is told in “The Late Arrivals Club” in last month’s issue). For both the German and Allied pilots, it had really been “a bad day at the office”. The image seen here shows Horst Wilborn’s Ju 52 in the moments after it burst into flames in the desert after being shot down by the three 601 Squadron Spitfires near Charing Cross during the afternoon of 29 September 1942. (HORST WILBORN VIA BILL NORMAN/RAY SHERK)

“A BAD DAY AT THE OFFICE” 29 September 1942

IMAGE OF

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Private George Masters always reckoned that the number 9 was his lucky number. By a strange quirk of fate it was on 9 April 1918 that he found himself faced with unparalleled danger. It was no luck, though, which resulted in his award of the Victoria Cross, only sheer, bloody, determination.

MAIN PICTURE: Ambulances waiting outside a dressing station on the Western Front. (ALL IMAGES

COURTESY OF THE ROYAL LOGISTIC CORPS MUSEUM UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

FAR RIGHT: Private George Masters pictured wearing both the Victoria Cross and Croix de Guerre.

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OUTHPORT-BORN Richard George Masters joined the Army in February 1915 at the age of thirty-eight. As a mechanic, George Masters, as he preferred to be called, was a perfect candidate for the Army Service Corps. He was despatched to France and, on 20 March 1915, was sent as reinforcement to No.3 Field Ambulance. As an assistant driver, ten days later he became the driver of Ambulance No.21. Together the man and his machine formed an unbreakable bond that endured for the remainder of the war. Though mainly based at Béthune, Masters’ area of operations spread far along the front line including two spells in Belgium.

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THE FIRST TASTE OF ACTION Masters had gone into action for the first time during the Battle of Festubert in May 1915, during which he described in a memoir how to evacuate casualties from the front: “You drive up to the dressing station, take out your four stretchers, drop down your top racks, put the two top stretcher cases on first, your next two on the bottom, put a blanket on each one, in winter usually two. Take your cases to the Main Dressing Station where the bearers would take out your cases. You would then receive back four stretchers, also the same number of blankets that was on your cases.” During the battle the ambulances were working almost continuously,

driving round in a great loop, picking up the casualties, dropping them off at the dressing stations, before returning to the front sometimes carrying rations and extra bearers. The drivers would work for forty-eight hours without a break. “Each morning as it was breaking daylight,” recalled Masters, “we used to feel half dead but after some breakfast and a quick wash it made you feel fresh again. You could carry on through the day and the next night but the same feeling came the next morning and it was almost impossible to keep your eyes open.” It was not only battle casualties that Masters had to deal with, as he explained during the winter of 1916/17 in the Ypres Salient. “We had a great deal of trench feet cases. The men’s feet www.britainatwar.com

A HELL OF A GAME Private George Masters VC Battle of Lys), on the morning of 9 April 1918 – and, as Masters later described, 9 was his “lucky number”.

“IT’S ALL IN A DAY’S WORK YOU KNOW” The Germans started a preliminary bombardment at 04.30 hours and twoand-a-half hours later the infantry attacked. As the enemy troops went over the top, Béthune, was subjected to an almost continuous barrage of high explosive and gas shells. Stretching from the north around to the east of the town, the men of the 55th (West 

and legs were swelled up to twice their size but what else would you expect. They had to stand in water and mud up to their uppers for hours on end. Fancy yourself being in water and mud for hours. Your legs inflamed perhaps wounded or sick as well. You come to the dressing station; your legs and feet rubbed in oil and wrapped in cotton wool and then sent down the line. Fancy the relief when you get to the hospital in a bed after a bath and dry clothes. Within a few hours you can experience the two extremes – misery and comfort.” Even greater misery was experienced by those that had been badly gassed. “I remember at one place we were at, we had a lot of gassed cases and we had to lay them in a church yard. There they www.britainatwar.com

LEFT: Private Masters pictured in front of Ambulance No.21. As this photograph appears to have been taken in Germany in March 1919, it is not clear whether or not this is the same vehicle in which Masters undertook his acts of gallantry on the Western Front.

lay absolutely motionless and froth slowly coming out of their mouths. It was pitiful to see them.” Masters described what life was like in this “terrible” winter: “When you have been months around a place that is nothing but wreckage of war, thousands of shell holes. Trees all split and broken off short. Buildings levelled to the ground, broken transport, thick mud and awful cold weather. And misery with the gassed and sick men, day after day and night after night handling stretcher cases.” Masters continued to see action, but it was not until the last year of the war that he was embroiled in his most desperate mission of all. It happened at Béthune, during the German Spring Offensive (or more specifically the FEBRUARY 2014 63

A HELL OF A GAME Private George Masters VC A KEEN CYCLIST AN AVID cyclist, George Masters won numerous championships, including the Liverpool Centre National Cycling Championship which he won four times. He also held tandem world records, for the quarter mile and the half mile, with his partner W. Birtwistle in 1898. During the winter months he turned to cross-country running and also won several championships. Later Masters turned to motor cycles and, in 1903, began racing. Clearly a very fit individual, he won the Divisional 100 yards in France in 1916, despite being almost 40-years-old.

 THE CROIX DE GUERRE

“On the morning of 17 March 1917, after a bombing raid on the Somme, Pte. R G Masters volunteered to go forward with a motor ambulance to an advance dressing station which was located in a small quarry just behind the front line. The trip was a hazardous one, being under shell fire all of the time. Masters made a total of four journeys, clearing all of the wounded from the quarry.” Private Richard George Masters was decorated with the Croix de Guerre (the original French citation for which is seen here) on 24 January 1918, on the steps of Southport Town Hall.

Lancashire) Division put up a stubborn defence. Casualties were high but, owing to the intensity of the German barrage, it was considered too dangerous for any ambulances to try and go up to the front trenches. Nevertheless, Masters volunteered to attempt to find a way through. He set off at 13.00 hours. “I proceeded towards the front through Gors [Gorre] over a small bridge across the canal by the brewery,” Masters recorded in his memoirs. “I had to clear the road of all sorts of debris and had to cut wires away that were hanging over the road. After passing over the canal bridge a shell burst in front of me and killed eight men who were going up the line. I think they were just back from leave. I had to stop and pull them out of the way to make a

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Richard George Masters came from a fighting family – all four brothers served in the First World War. Private John Masters also enlisted in the Army Service Corps in France. Private Matthew Masters died of wounds received in the Dardanelles whilst serving in the Cycle Corps, whilst Private William Masters, Loyal North Lancs Regiment, was killed in action at Festubert in March 1918.

passage for the ambulance. I can tell you it was not a nice sight; it was enough to unnerve anyone. “After getting a little further towards the line I was stopped by a very large shell hole which reached almost across the road. I looked like being beaten at the finish but I saw a sandbagged sentry box, so I carried the bags of sand and packed them on the side of the hole till I made the road wide enough to get over. The Germans were still shelling heavy and machine guns sweeping the road. I picked up a lot of cases here and obtained help from soldiers to get my stretcher cases on. I had no orderly with me; just on my own, no one to fall out with and working in my own sweet way. “After I had got my cases on, I made my way back to the Main Dressing Station ... We were expected to carry four stretcher cases and two sitting cases; or eight sitting cases. On this journey I had four stretchers and nine sitting cases. I hardly know how they all got in.” Overloaded in this fashion, it is little wonder that Ambulance No.21 was brought to a halt by a puncture. Somehow, Masters managed to change the wheel and continue on his journey. As he started back on the road an aeroplane attempted to bomb

the ambulance. The vehicle escaped undamaged but there was one other soldier on the road, only one, and the bomb struck and killed him. It later transpired that the aeroplane was British. When Masters got back to his station and explained the situation, his Colonel sent an officer with some bearers to run an advanced dressing station in a building near where the sand bag sentry box was. This helped considerably, enabling the ambulance drivers to transfer their cases much quicker. Still, Masters noted, the dangers remained: “While working this position on my first journey I was gassed and while at the Main Dressing Station I reported to the Medical Officer and was given a gargle and carried on for the rest of the day.” During the day Masters made one journey to Essars down the road between the canal and the front line. The Germans had only then been driven out of Essars and the field artillery was on a parallel road firing over the hedges and over Masters’ head. The worst stretch of road on his repeated journeys was a piece of straight track where there was a V-shaped junction. This was known to the troops as the “Tuning Fork”. It was here that he www.britainatwar.com

 “MY WOUND HAS NOW HEALED”

On 17 May 1918, one officer of the 1/4th Battalion Loyal North Lancashire Regiment wrote to Private Masters whilst being treated at an auxiliary hospital, the John Leigh Memorial Hospital, at Altrincham. “I was very glad to see that my recommendation bore some fruit,” he noted. “I offer you my congratulations. I am sure your wife and children must be so proud if you. My wound has now healed and I am rapidly recovering. I may add that one of the officers you brought down during the first trip is here [and] thanks to you alive. He has lost his right eye.”

was repeatedly bombed and shot at. On each trip Masters undoubtedly risked his life. By 17.00 hours on the 9th he had completed dozens of journeys and had brought in approximately 200 wounded men. At 21.00 hours, finally unable to carry on due to the effects of the gas, Masters himself had to go to the hospital. That was the end of Masters’ efforts. When he was praised for his actions he was known to have smiled and said, “It’s all in a day’s work you know”.

IN ACTION AGAIN Private Richard Masters was soon back behind the wheel and on 18 April 1918, he was once again in the thick of the fighting. Optimistic as usual, he saw the date as being doubly lucky for him. “I was detailed for duty at Gore [Gorre] dressing station which was in the brewery cellars over the canal bridge. On this day I am certain it was many times hotter for shelling than on the 9th. It was very bad getting to Gore as the road was again reported as impassable but after much work I eventually arrived there and reported to the Medical Officer in Charge.”

The MO said that he was not ready to start receiving cases so Masters had to wait. Whilst he waited a shell exploded near to the bridge over the canal, the explosion literally blowing it into the air. It was clear that Masters could now not evacuate any casualties that way. “I reported to the MO and told him I would have to look down the canal, so that they would know where to look for me if I did not return because they were shelling awful.” Leaving his ambulance behind, Masters picked up a bicycle and pedalled along the canal bank. He came to a narrow pontoon bridge but this was not wide enough for his ambulance; further on he found one that was suitable. Masters cycled back. “I returned to the dressing station,” he continued. “The shells were still falling along the canal and fields making the soil and water fly. The cellars were now full of wounded. I brought my ambulance out into the road and got my cases on and made my way over the fields till I reached the pontoon I intended to cross. I got on easy enough with having plenty of room on the field

but before I could get on the towpath I had to reverse and cut just over the corner which was risky. The reason for this was because the towpath was only narrow and the steering lock on the car was only short for this place.” Masters succeeded in taking his cases to Foquerriers and began to make his way back towards the dressing station. Despite being attacked from the air, Masters returned to the dressing station to begin his second evacuation of the day. 

ABOVE: A portrait of George Masters VC, Croix de Guerre in later life. www.britainatwar.com

ABOVE: A copy of the Routine Orders in which Major General E.P. Strickland CB, CMG, DSO, Commanding the 1st Division, announced the award of Private Masters’ Victoria Cross. FAR LEFT: British troops blinded by tear gas wait outside an Advance Dressing Station, near Béthune, on 10 April 1918. Each man has his hand on the shoulder of the man in front of him. Speaking of such a scene as this, Masters once wrote: “There were [those] whose eyes were affected. They would put their hands on each other’s’ shoulders one behind the other and would be led by a RAMC orderly from the ambulances into the dressing tent.” FEBRUARY 2014 65

A HELL OF A GAME Private George Masters VC THE ROYAL LOGISTIC CORPS MUSEUM THE ROYAL Logistic Corps and its Forming Corps have, to date, been awarded five Victoria Crosses and thirteen George Crosses. A number of these medals, including Private Masters’ VC, are held by the RLC Museum and Royal Corps of Transport Medal Collection. When The RLC Museum was opened in 1995, the majority of the collections from the regimental museums of the Royal Corps of Transport and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps Museum were combined. This was joined by a small number of objects from the Royal Pioneer Corps Museum, along with a selection from the Army Catering Corps. The RLC Museum, entry to which is free of charge, is located at Blackdown Road, Deepcut, Surrey. For more information on opening hours or arranging a visit, please see: www.rlcmuseum.co.uk ABOVE: On Sunday, 30 July 1963, the Royal Army Service Corps was formally presented with Private Masters’ medals which had been bequeathed by him. The presentation was made by his son, Mr D. Masters, and daughter, Mrs B. Shea, seen here standing either side of Major-General Sir William G. Roe, KBE, CB. On the far right is Major N. Fletcher, Honorary Secretary of the Southport Branch of the RASC Association.

ABOVE: Born on 23 March 1877 in Birkdale, Masters died on 4 April 1963, aged 86, in Southport. He was buried at St Cuthbert’s, Churchtown, Southport. BELOW: Private George Masters VC, Croix de Guerre, can be seen here, standing fourth from the left, with other members of his unit in Germany, as part of the British Army of the Rhine, in March 1919.

“After many journeys from Gore [sic] to Foquerriers another ambulance was told to follow me to help clear the wounded and gassed cases,” continued Masters. “As we were coming through Béthune a shell fell in one of the houses in one of the narrow streets filling it with bricks and timber. We had to reverse out of the street and take another route. When I got to the dressing station at Gore the other ambulance was nowhere to be seen. I got the wind up. I thought he may have got into the canal. After I loaded up again I proceeded to the Main Dressing Station. I kept looking into the canal expecting to see the top of an ambulance in the water. Later I was told he missed me in the dark when I took the towpath. “Later in the night it snowed slightly and on one journey I thought I was going into the canal. Of course you must

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remember we had to drive without any lights, which was a very great strain when we were on long periods of duty.” The incident Masters refers to in which he almost drove into the canal was where a plank of wood had been placed to stop vehicles driving off the road. In the dark Masters knocked the plank aside and the ambulance began to slide down the bank of the canal. “My heart was in my mouth,” admitted Masters, but he threw the ambulance immediately into reverse and managed to claw his way back onto the road. “I worked this route for twenty-four hours practically without any rest. There were only three gassed cases left in the dressing station when I was relieved. Later I was complimented by the ADMS and also by the Colonel of No.1 Field Ambulance for the splendid work I had done both on April 9th and also the 18th, both these days being very hot times.”

“FOR MOST CONSPICUOUS BRAVERY” It was not just the Colonel of No.1 Field Ambulance that had noted Masters' contribution to the rescue of the wounded. A number of other officers had passed up the chain of command

their recommendation that he should be suitably rewarded. Masters had already received the Croix de Guerre from the French for his actions on 7 March 1917 (this being gazetted on 13 July 1917). The following notice was duly printed in The London Gazette of 8 May 1918: “Owing to an enemy attack, communications were cut off and wounded could not be evacuated. The road was reported impassable, but Pte. Masters volunteered to try to get through, and after the greatest difficulty succeeded, although he had to clear the road of all sorts of debris. He made journey after journey throughout the afternoon, over a road consistently shelled and swept by machine-gun fire, and was on one occasion bombed by an aeroplane. The greater part of the wounded cleared from this area were evacuated by Pte. Masters, as his was the only car that got through during this particular time.” Masters, aged 41 at the time, had been awarded the Victoria Cross. Unaware of what was in store when news of the award reached the front, Masters was queuing up for his dinner. The Sergeant Cook refused to serve him, saying that Masters’ sergeant was looking for him. “When he found me he would not go away, so three of us were on parade (the other drivers were out on duty). The Sergeant spick and span, and the spare driver and myself covered with dirt and grease – we had been working under my ambulance ... After the Sergeant Major called the parade to attention the CO came. He called out my name. I doubled to the front of the parade. I had no idea what it was for until he said ‘His Majesty the King’.” This was the only Victoria Cross awarded to a member of the Army Service Corps (it received the Royal prefix in late 1918) during the First World War. Afterwards Masters wrote: “It was all in the game, and a hell of a game it was.”  www.britainatwar.com

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SANCTUARY FROM THE TRENCHES Stamford Military Hospital MAIN PICTURE: One of the thousands of auxiliary hospitals established across the United Kingdom during the First World War was that located at Dunham Massey Hall in Cheshire. This is the Hall’s north front viewed across the moat in early morning. (©NATIONAL TRUST

IMAGES/NICK MEERS)

ABOVE RIGHT: Lady Jane Grey in her Voluntary Aid Detachment uniform.

(COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL TRUST/ ROBERT THRIFT)

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T THE outset of war, there were only 7,000 hospital beds in the United Kingdom. As the months passed, it quickly became apparent that this was a totally inadequate number to deal with the thousands of casualties coming back from the front, many of whom had injuries and fevers not seen before. Bed numbers were increased by adding extensions to existing hospitals, the establishment of special military hospitals and through the efforts of voluntary organisations, which established a large number of auxiliary and convalescent hospitals. By the time of the Armistice, the number of beds had risen to 364,000, providing much needed backup for the vast field hospitals on the Continent and elsewhere. The auxiliary hospitals were established in a variety of buildings, ranging from town halls and schools to large and small private houses, both in the country and in cities.

The owners had offered the use of these locations to the Joint War Committee which had been formed by the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem. More than 5,000 properties were offered and from these 3,244 auxiliary hospitals were established. Their role was to take casualties that did not need critical care, thus freeing up vital beds in mainstream or specialist hospitals.

Auxiliary hospitals were attached to central military hospitals, which looked after patients who remained under military control. The personnel at each hospital usually consisted of a commandant, who was in charge of the hospital (except for medical and nursing services), a quartermaster, who was responsible for the receipt, custody and issue of articles in the provision store, a matron, who directed the work of the nursing staff, and members of a Voluntary Aid Detachment, who were trained in first aid and home nursing. Dunham Massey was the home of the Grey family and in due course Penelope, Lady Stamford, the widow of the 9th Earl of Stamford, offered her house to the Joint War Committee. Consequently, from April 1917 until January 1919 it served as the Stamford Military Hospital. Located at the heart of a 1,200 hectare estate at Altrincham in rural Cheshire, Dunham Massey was an ideal location for the troops to be treated and allowed to convalesce.

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OTHER RANKS ONLY Dunham Massey was an “other ranks” hospital rather than an officers’ retreat, so the patients were privates and NCOs, men from all walks of life, including a few from across the British Empire. From the first admissions on 24 April 1917, to the last departure on 6 February 1919, a total of 282 patients were treated there. Although casualties sent to auxiliary hospitals were generally not the most

seriously ill or wounded, some very sick men were treated at Dunham Massey with excellent results. A range of treatments, including surgery, took place and individual outcomes – in a time before antibiotics – can be seen to have been very good. The hospital was run and managed by three remarkable women. Penelope, Lady Stamford, worked as the hospital’s Commandant and was ultimately responsible

for its efficient administration. As well as serving as Vice President of the Altrincham division of the Red Cross, she worked tirelessly to raise funds for the war effort in general. Lady Jane Grey was her daughter, who, aged just 15-years-old when war broke out, helped transform Dunham Massey into the hospital. Eventually passing her Red Cross exams, Lady Jane Grey remained closely involved with the work of the hospital right through to the end of the war, living and working there as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse. The third woman was Sister Catherine Bennett. A qualified nurse, she was one of the first to arrive and quickly became the senior member of staff, effectively running the hospital day-to-day. She took on extraordinary amounts of work, insisting on doing many tasks personally rather than delegating to the nurses. Dunham Massey’s saloon became the hospital’s main ward and was known as “Bagdad” Ward. Some pioneering treatments only developed during 

LEFT: Convalescing soldiers and hospital staff in the garden at Dunham Massey. Note that the soldiers are wearing “Hospital Blues”. On arrival in the UK, a casualty was eventually issued with “a special hospital uniform consisting of a blue singlebreasted jacket with a white lining – worn open at the neck, blue trousers, a white shirt and a red tie. To complete the outfit he wore his own khaki service cap with its regimental badge.” Interestingly, this uniform has no pockets. The suit became variously referred to as the “blue invalid uniform”, “hospital suit” or “hospital blues”.

(COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL TRUST/ ROBERT THRIFT)

In the First World War Dunham Massey, the home of Penelope, Lady Stamford, became a hospital for victims of the fighting. Now a National Trust property, for the duration of the First World War centenary commemorations, the house will once again become Stamford Military Hospital.

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Dunham Massey Hall circa 1910-1920. (COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL TRUST/ROBERT THRIFT)

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SANCTUARY FROM THE TRENCHES Stamford Military Hospital RIGHT: The saloon at Dunham Massey during its time as the main ward of Stamford Military Hospital. (COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL TRUST)

FAR RIGHT OPPOSITE PAGE: How the saloon usually appears. (NATIONAL TRUST

IMAGES/ANDREAS VON EINSIEDEL)

RIGHT: A portrait of Sister Catherine Eva Bennett taken from her own photograph album. (COURTESY

the war, such as the Thomas Splint, were applied at the hospital. Results and outcomes were regarded as very good due to a high standard of hygiene and nursing care given by Sister Bennett and her nursing staff. The Great Hall was the soldiers’ recreation room where most of the men ate their meals and where they could relax. The men would have been very aware of the proximity of the operating theatre next door, albeit only irregularly in use, but in general this would have been a pleasant and relaxed space for them. Photographs of the room in use show this would have been sparsely furnished, leaving plenty of circulation the availability of surgical staff (who generally worked across several hospitals) as well as the condition of the patients. Since the cases recuperating at Dunham Massey were not emergencies, surgery was planned and scheduled carefully. Typical operations might be to remove “sequestra” (i.e. dead bone and tissue from a large wound) or shrapnel fragments.

OF JOHN RYLANDS

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY)

BELOW RIGHT: In November 2013, staff at Dunham Massey were cleaning the study of the 10th Earl of Stamford when they made a surprising discovery. Whilst polishing the outside of a cupboard, which had supposedly been emptied and locked following a flooding incident six years earlier, they happened to peer in through a hole at the back of the cupboard – and saw something inside. They eventually retrieved it to discover that it was a missing photograph album that had belonged to Sister Catherine Bennett. The album is an important piece of history relating to Dunham’s time as a hospital. It contains photographs of men being admitted to the hospital on stretchers and images of soldiers whilst convalescing.

BRAIN SURGERY

space consistent with the fact that all patients would have come in here, if able, for meals and allowing for trolley movements through it from the ward to the operating theatre. Upstairs, the first floor was used by Lady Stamford and Lady Jane as living accommodation throughout the duration of the hospital. The area at the bottom of the main stairs was established as the hospital’s operating theatre. It was there that a small number of operations were performed, though such procedures depended on

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Surviving records indicate that most of the casualties sent to Dunham Massey had wounds caused directly by the fighting on the Western Front. At the same time, more men came to Dunham with wounds to their arms, legs, abdomen or buttocks than to their chest or head. Victims of gas warfare were also sent to Stamford Military Hospital. For their treatment, a separate small ward was set up where light levels were kept low. Ointments, inhalations and darkness, together with a very plain diet were usually required for treatment. One of the illnesses treated at the Stamford Military Hospital was trench fever. This was unknown before the First World War and it took a year or two of studying cases and experimenting to work out that this cyclical, powerful

fever – which in most passed off quickly but in some was a major problem – was spread by the lice that were endemic in the trenches. Men would scratch itchy bites and unwittingly rub louse faeces into the wounds, which caused the infection. Even before this was discovered men would sit nightly, running candle flames along the seams of their clothing listening to the popping of lice and their eggs, but this was little help. Once the link with trench fever was understood, new regulations ensured men were bathed regularly (fortnightly), and insecticides were developed for the lice. The treatment of those suffering from shrapnel or shell splinter wounds involved regular, painful changes to dressings, and, in some cases, operations to remove shrapnel fragments or – if the wound was not healing easily – dead tissue and bone. Large wounds would have to be flooded with antiseptic solutions, to try and kill infection. In some cases, Sister Bennett advocated the “sun cure” with wounds open to the air and sunlight as the best disinfectant. Lady Jane Grey has left us a description of an operation which was performed on a Private Johnstone to remove shrapnel embedded in his brain. Johnston was admitted with untreated shrapnel or shell splinter wounds in his head, and he was in intense pain. The only hope for his survival was to carry out a trepanning operation to remove the shrapnel or splinters, despite the obvious danger this entailed. Originally scheduled for 22 April 1918, the operation was postponed until May. It consisted of raising two inches of Johnstone’s skull and making a neat hole down to the surface of the brain in order to remove the shrapnel, but as the procedure was underway the surgeon, one Dr Cooper, discovered that there was a second piece lower down which he could not remove. However, Johnstone seemed to be none the worse and asked for a cup of tea less www.britainatwar.com

RECREATING THE PAST

than an hour after surgery. “The only operation actually I attended was a trepan,” recalled Lady Jane in an interview recorded in September 1986. “He had a bullet in his brain, you see, and this had to be got out. I was given the job of shining a torch into the hole once they’d made the hole in the brain; I was given the job of shining the torch right into it and I remember being awfully interested because you remember you’d always heard about the grey matter … I saw the brain sort of pulsating and it was grey which interested me enormously and that’s why it was called grey matter because it was grey and so I held the torch in front and, and saw the bullet being extracted by the surgeon.

rather unhygienic didn’t it?” There were hopes for Johnstone’s recovery, but he suddenly developed violent seizures affecting all his muscles. He was given a sedative injection and Sister Bennett and Lady Jane took turns to sit with him. This could not have come at a worse time because another patient was admitted with dirt in a head wound and developed erysipelas, an infection caused by streptococcus bacteria. He had to be isolated in Lady Stamford’s private parlour, causing even more strain on Sister Bennett, who was compelled to provide intensive care for both men and could not do any other dressings because of the possible spread of infection. Sister Bennett wrote of this operation:

AS PART of its First World War centenary commemorations the National Trust is returning Dunham Massey Hall back into the Stamford Military Hospital. The hospital’s recreation room, the operating theatre and nurses’ station will all be brought back to life. Upstairs, the first floor was used by Lady Stamford and Lady Jane as living accommodation throughout the duration of the hospital, will be recreated. As was the case in 1917, the Great Gallery will again become a store for the items of furniture and objects removed to make way for the hospital. The hospital will be open to visitors who will be able to wander through this huge space whilst ghostly archive images of Edwardian hey-day Britain are silently projected onto the furniture. There will be fourteen beds in the recreated “Bagdad” Ward. Each bed will represent an individual, named soldier who suffered with a particular injury, along with the treatment he received and its outcome. Upon arrival every visitor will be given (as the soldiers were) a hospital admission ticket. Each ticket will carry the name and short history of a particular soldier, whose progress the visitors will be able to follow as they journey through the hospital. Stamford Military Hospital will open on Saturday, 1 March 2014. For more information, please visit: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/dunhammassey

Harry came at once, we did the usual treatment for this and very gradually the symptoms subsided, he was very bad Sunday night. Dr Percy came yesterday and was delighted with the improvement in the patient’s condition.” Unfortunately, Johnstone’s condition deteriorated and he was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary for specialist treatment. He died there on Sunday, 19 May 1918, before an operation could take place. In spite of her best efforts, Sister Bennett wrote on 22 May 1918: “I have lost my first patient here. Poor Johnstone died 5pm last Sunday. It was a sad case, he suffered terribly, but he always maintained that the pain was less severe after the operation … Dr Percy said Death was inevitable and the operation only shortened his sufferings.”

AFTER THE WAR

“It was very interesting. And you know you always wonder whether you are going to be a bit squeamy and sort of faint – like you hear people do when the first time – but having been given the job to do one forgets oneself. But otherwise it was the most extraordinary place for an operating theatre because through in the Billiard Room was the nurses’ sitting room so we were always walking through of an evening once everything was over so that made it www.britainatwar.com

“The trepanning operation was very interesting, two inches of the skull was raised and shrapnel removed. The poor patient suffered very much a week before the operation, he was so relieved after, coming round, said, it had been the happiest day of his life and asked for tea ¾ hr after the op: Dr Percy was splendid and has been excessively kind to the boy all through. Saturday afternoon a violent attack of brain disturbance occurred, affecting all the muscles. Dr

The objective of the war hospitals was to return soldiers to health and the front line. Around one third of Dunham Massey’s patients were discharged directly to duty, another third were discharged to the command depot for light duties or physical training – some of these eventually being sent back to the front line Dunham Massey Hall and its estate were bequeathed to the National Trust in 1976 by Roger Grey, 10th Earl of Stamford. During the First World War, Roger worked as Aide-de-Camp to General Francis Lloyd, charged with the defence of London. He had initially tried to join a regiment but ill health prevented him from enlisting. His bequest to the National Trust was the largest of its kind made to the charity at the time. 

ABOVE: The rules of Stamford Military Hospital. (COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL TRUST/ ROBERT THRIFT)

LEFT: An examination of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s records suggests that the Private Johnstone recalled by both Lady Jane Grey and Sister Bennett was 25-year-old Private 240709 William T. Johnstone of the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders. Having passed away on 19 May 1918, William, the son of William and Isabella Johnstone of 3, Low Street in New Pitsligo, a village in Aberdeenshire, he was duly buried in New Pitsligo Parish Churchyard – seen here. (COURTESY OF THE COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION)

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DATES THAT SHAPED T 3

Conditions on the Channel Islands had become increasingly hard. “Things are getting very difficult for the poor and working men,” wrote Ruth Ozanne in her diary depicting life on occupied Guernsey. “No ration of potatoes and few have beans, even parsnips are hard to get and sugar beet out of the question.”

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At 23.00 hours, German troops launched a counter-attack on the Allied-held Campoleone salient at the north end of the Anzio beachhead. Some hours after the attack started, the coherence of the front line had been completely shattered, and the fighting for the salient had given way to small unit actions, swaying back and forth through the gullies.

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A force of Allied troops set out from the town of Ledo in Assam, which was the eastern most broad-gauge railway station in India, to undertake its part in the second Chindit operation. The remainder of the troops involved were to be flown in during early March under the code-name Operation Thursday. Under the aerial phase of the campaign the plans were to fly in a force of 10,000 men, 1,000 mules, equipment and supplies into clearings in the heart of Burma behind enemy lines. This type of operation had never been attempted before. The objectives of the mission were to assist the Ledo force by cutting the communications of the Japanese 18th Division, harassing its rear, and preventing its reinforcement; create a favourable situation for the Yunnan Chinese forces to cross the River Salween and enter Burma; and inflict the greatest possible damage and confusion on the Japanese in northern Burma.

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The British government signed two agreements with the French Committee of National Liberation (FCNL) – a Financial Agreement and a Mutual Aid Agreement. The former established a common rate of exchange of 200 Francs to the Pound in all parts of the French Empire. This made it possible for something like normal trading to be resumed between the French territories. The latter, meanwhile, provided “that each party shall furnish the other free of cost with all military assistance which it is best able to supply for the joint prosecution of the war”. Established by General Henri Giraud and General Charles de Gaulle on 3 June 1943, the FCNL was formed to provide united leadership, organization and coordination to the campaign to liberate France.

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Requisitioned as a troopship in 1940, the SS Khedive Ismail had sailed from Mombasa, Kenya, on 6 February 1944. Carrying 1,511 personnel from the Army and the Royal and Merchant Navies, the 7,513 ton ship was en route to Colombo, Ceylon as part of Convoy KR-8. During the early afternoon of Saturday, 12 February 1944, the convoy was sighted by the Japanese submarine I-27 in the Indian Ocean south-west of the Maldives. Two torpedoes struck the troopship. No less than 1,297 people lost their lives in the space of the two minutes it took to sink the ship, including seventy-seven women. Only 208 men and six women survived the ordeal; the sinking was the third worst Allied shipping disaster of the war and the single worst loss of female service personnel in the history of the British Commonwealth. One of those who lost their lives was the British sportsman, explorer, author and War Correspondent Kenneth Gandar-Dower. Escorting destroyers forced I-27 to the surface through a series of repeated depth-charge attacks. HMS Paladin then rammed the submarine, in the process causing considerable damage to herself. Finally a torpedo from HMS Petard, the seventh she had fired, destroyed I-27.

 MULBERRY HARBOUR CONSTRUCTION A view along Stokes Bay, at Gosport in Hampshire, which, taken on Friday, 4 FEBRUARY 1944, shows a few of the fourteen concrete Phoenix caissons for the Mulberry Harbours which were constructed at the site between 1943 and 1944. This picture was one of a series taken following an accident at the site; the caisson second from the camera had collapsed in its frame during launch. Three local construction workers were killed in the incident. Stokes Bay was closed to the public from May 1942 having been designated as a protected area. The Phoenix caissons were cast along the shore and then launched sideways into the sea. They were then towed to storage locations where they were partially submerged to avoid being observed by the enemy prior to deployment during the D-Day landings. (IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM; H35554)

The Allies began a bombing campaign against the French railway system in an attempt to disrupt the enemy’s reinforcement plans during the forthcoming invasion of Europe.

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D THE WAR

FEBRUARY 1944

Key Moments and Events that affected Britain in WW2

THE BATTLE OF BERLIN DRAWS TO A CLOSE

After a rest of more than two weeks for Bomber Command’s regular Main Force bombing squadrons, a force of 891 aircraft was despatched to attack Berlin on the evening of Tuesday, 15 FEBRUARY 1944. This was the largest RAF force of the war ordered to Berlin and the largest non1,000 bomber raid sent to any target. It was also the first time that more than 500 Lancasters and more than 300 Halifaxes were despatched on one night. Despite cloud cover, most of the important war industries were hit, including the Siemensstadt area, with the centre and southwestern districts sustaining most of the damage. The quantity of bombs dropped, 2,642 tons, was also a record. Taken in the aftermath of this raid, the picture seen here is part of a vertical photographic-reconnaissance image taken over Berlin. It shows an area immediately south of the Tiergarten and east of the Zoological Gardens. Lützow Platz, marked, can be seen surrounded by a considerable area of buildings gutted by incendiary fires resulting from repeated raids by Bomber Command aircraft. Amongst the thirty-four Axis servicemen killed was General der Panzertruppen Friedrich Kühn (there were 320 deaths in total). It is stated that Kühn was, at the time, the highest ranking officer of the Heer (German Army) to be killed by enemy action in the war. The historians Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt note, in The Bomber Command War Diaries, that “this was really the end of the true ‘Battle of Berlin’; only one more raid took place on the city in this period and that was not for more than a month”. (HMP)

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De Havilland Mosquitoes of Nos. 21, 464 and 487 Squadrons led by Group Captain P.C. Pickard attacked Amiens Prison. The low-level raid was successful, with 258 of the 700 prisoners held in the prison being able to escape – although a further 102 were killed. Two Mosquitoes were shot down.

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At 08.30 hours, a defective striker in an anti-tank mine fuze, which was in the last stage of being filled, exploded inside a building at the Royal Ordnance Factory at Kirby in Lancashire – also known as Filling Factory No.7. The explosion, in a building which contained a total of 1,000 fuzes, killed one female worker outright and seriously injured two others (one of whom later died). Realising that there was a very real danger that other fuzes might explode, one of the factory’s staff, Arthur Bywater, along with a number of other volunteers, took on the dangerous task of removing all of the remaining fuzes to a place of safety where they could be dealt with. Bywater and his team worked for three days, during which period they had cleared a total of 12,724 fuzes from the factory. For his actions, Bywater was awarded the George Cross. A few months later, Bywater was involved in another explosion in the same factory. This time, he was among eleven people who were awarded the George Medal; he is the only civilian to be awarded both the George Cross and the George Medal.

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THE ALLIED STRATEGIC BOMBING CAMPAIGN

Speaking in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 9 FEBRUARY 1944, the Bishop of Chichester, Dr George Bell, a consistent parliamentary critic of the policy of area bombing, questioned the morality of the Allied campaign. Having confirmed his wish to see the enemy beaten, in his speech Dr Bell said: “I desire to challenge the Government on the policy which directs the bombing of enemy towns on the present scale, especially with reference to civilians, noncombatants, and non-military and non-industrial objectives. I also desire to make it plain that, in anything I say on this issue of policy, no criticism is intended of the pilots, the gunners, and the air crews who, in circumstances of tremendous danger, with supreme courage and skill, carry out the simple duty of obeying their superiors’ orders.” Dr Bell went on to state: “I do not forget the Luftwaffe, or its tremendous bombing of Belgrade, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Portsmouth, Coventry, Canterbury and many other places of military, industrial and cultural importance … The question with which I am concerned is this. Do the Government understand the full force of what area bombardment is doing and is destroying now? Are they alive not only to the vastness of the material damage, much of which is irreparable, but also to the harvest they are laying up for the future relationships of the peoples of Europe as well as to its moral implications? The image seen here is a low-level oblique aerial photograph showing the damage caused to Frankfurt during the Second World War. By the time of the German surrender, the once famous medieval city centre (seen here with the Cathedral in the foreground), then the largest in Germany, had been destroyed. After the war, the official assessment of the damage caused to this city by the RAF and USAAF stated that between one and two thousand acres had been devastated. FEBRUARY 2014 73

LOW-LEVEL ATTACK Objective Kenley

PART 3

Low-Level Attack: Objective Kenley MAIN PICTURE & TOP FAR RIGHT: One of the Kenley raiders which did not return to its base on Sunday, 18 August 1940. Coded F1+DT, this is the Dornier Do 17Z-2 flown by Oberleutnant Rudolf Lamberty and his crew pictured after it crashed at Leaves Green near Biggin Hill at about 13.30 hours.

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The Escape Back to France

Y THE time the last parachutes and cables from the Parachute and Cable (PAC) anti-aircraft apparatus were drifting back down to earth at RAF Kenley, and the final bombs were exploding from the highlevel attack, the Dornier Do 17 raiders of 9./KG 76 were already streaking southwards for the English Channel. Behind them were the plumes of smoke rising from a shattered RAF station and the blazing wreck of the first of the attackers to fall; Feldwebel Johannes Petersen’s Do 17. Kathleen Rhodes, a Red Cross volunteer with the ARP services in Kenley, had witnessed the approach of

the German bombers. Along with her fiancé, Lionel Miller, she had dived into a partly-finished Anderson shelter in the back garden of the bungalow at 121 Valley Road, Kenley, which lay on the side of the hill upon which the RAF base was located. They were joined by their neighbour Mrs Basing and her daughter.

from Kenley Aerodrome and they were coming down the hill again … and our ’planes were on top of them driving them down this hillside and the noise was so terrible. We could hear bombs they were just releasing … and they were getting nearer and nearer, each one. Somehow we knew we were going

“WE KNEW WE WERE GOING TO BE HIT” “Very soon we realised what was happening,” remembered Kathleen. “The bombers had got to get away

In the third and final part of his series of articles examining the attack on RAF Kenley on 18 August 1940, Andy Saunders reveals how, with the bombing over and their work done, the Dornier Do 17s turned for home, though not all of the German bombers returned from the mission.

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to be hit because we couldn’t get out of the line of fire they were just coming straight at us.1 “The four of us just huddled together and down they came and we got this bomb. It came down the entrance to the shelter between the shelter and the house – and that was it. Immediately afterwards we were just numbed; we were in darkness and all the rubble had blown up and the dust and dirt. “We just stayed there quiet for a moment and then it cleared, all the air cleared and I didn’t seem to feel anything at the moment. I was still conscious and I didn’t feel any pain, actually just a lot of numbness, and I thought for

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the moment I saw my shoes at the other end of the shelter and I thought ‘Oh my goodness, my feet have gone’ but no they hadn’t – I saw my feet coming out through the rubble. “Lionel had fallen across me and he was unconscious. I had this awful numbness down one side of me and I didn’t know what had happened; I felt as though my arm had gone … Mrs Basing had a very bad injury to her face, but Miss Basing got up and she said ‘don’t worry I’m a nurse’.”

Relatively unharmed, Miss Basing forced her way through the rubble to get some items from her house with which she could patch up the injured women. However, her house, she soon discovered, was just a pile of rubble. “She had got some bits of cloth and stuff and gave a little pad to me,” continued Kathleen, “and she said would I hold on to her mother’s face; it was really 

ABOVE LEFT: Sergeant Harry Newton photographed in front of his 111 Squadron Hawker Hurricane during August 1940. (ALL

IMAGES COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

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LOW-LEVEL ATTACK Objective Kenley

ABOVE: Another of the RAF pilots involved in the combats on 18 August 1940 – Pilot Officer P.H. “Dutch” Hugo of 615 Squadron. At the controls of Hurricane R4421, Hugo crash landed at Orpington at 13.15 hours having tangled with some of the escorting Messerschmitt Bf 109s. Wounded in the engagement, Hugo later recalled a frantic period of being “as busy as a one armed one-man bandsman with a flea in his pants” whilst initially trying to bale out of his stricken fighter – being prevented from doing so by a strap from his parachute which had become entangled with the lever that raised and lowered his seat. ABOVE RIGHT: Squadron Leader Don MacDonell led 64 Squadron during the interception over Kenley. During the engagement he shot down the Messerschmitt Bf 110C-4 flown by Oberleutnant Ruediger Proske. Coded U8+BB, the Bf 110 came down near Lydd at 13.45 hours. BELOW: Valley Road in Kenley; a victim of the German bombs, Kathleen Rhodes lived at No.121. (COURTESY OF NIGEL MILLER)

blown out on one side. Her face was very bad. I had a good right hand so I held my right hand out and held her mother’s face with that hand. “Lionel was impossible – he was just out. You couldn’t do anything with him, he was just quiet and unconscious. And we thought what are we going to do nobody knows we are here it’s an empty bungalow and who is going to come to us.” Eventually help arrived and the three victims were taken to hospital. Lionel’s skull was fractured and his back was damaged, though he eventually recovered. Kathleen spent a year in hospital having bomb splinters removed from her body. Her son still recalls that throughout her life pieces of metal would, from time to time, work their way to the surface of her arms and legs.

THE ESCAPE TO FRANCE Gone now was the neat cohesion of the Dorniers’ formation during its run-in to the target, a cohesion that had been shattered in the mayhem of the attack. Instead, it was now pretty much a case of every man for himself as the remaining eight pilots headed for home and out across Surrey, Kent and Sussex. Although Wilhelm Raab had just managed to “jink” through the rising smoke trails of the Parachute and Cable device, he was not out of trouble yet. Those few moments over Kenley had merely been the start of a desperate struggle for the surviving eight Dornier crews as they attempted to escape back to France. Raab explained what happened as the German bombers raced for the coast: “Keeping low, we screamed over

“My clothes were singed and tattered, I was covered in blood and everything was blackened and my face very badly burnt.” 76 FEBRUARY 2014

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ABOVE: Four members of 9./KG 76 – Oberleutnant Rudolf Lamberty (PoW), Oberleutnant Ahrends (killed), Oberleutnant Hermann Magin (died of injuries), and Hauptmann Joachim Roth (PoW) – dine together on the eve of their fateful mission against RAF Kenley on 18 August 1940.

ABOVE: Less than a month before she was injured in the attack on Kenley on the “Hardest Day”, Kathleen Rhodes had completed a nursing course as part of her service in the Red Cross Section of Kenley’s Air Raid Precautions. “We had a depot [the Roseneath First Aid Depot] where I lived at Kenley in Surrey quite near to my house,” recalled Kathleen, “and I thought it would be much better than having to travel up to London and back every day during the war. So I left the firm and joined this ARP Section … we did a year’s training and then we were ready for action really, but unfortunately something happened which put an end to all that.” That something was the Luftwaffe attack on 18 August 1940. (COURTESY OF NIGEL MILLER)

the houses, probably on the outskirts of London, and in a tight curve to the right in order to turn slowly onto a more southerly course for home. Then, my radio operator, Unteroffizier Malter, called: ‘Wilhelm! Keep down! There are a couple of fighters on our tail!’ “Now, I am not sure how Malter thought I could get any lower, but behind each small hill I altered my heading in order to pass out of the line of sight of the Hurricanes. After a short while, Erich cried out on the intercom: ‘I got him!’ Later, he explained that he had scored hits on a fighter and it started to smoke and go down. Walter Seuffert, our Flight Engineer, confirmed the hits. Only now did it occur to me to ask our www.britainatwar.com

Observer, Leutnant Erwin Wittman, if he had let go all his bombs. In his thick Bavarian accent he answered: ‘Where do you think they have gone? Ten was enough for one hangar!’ “We had received a general instruction that under no circumstances were we to bomb or strafe human settlements. Large rail yards, power stations or gasholders could be hit. To the left of us there appeared one such gas-holder and Wittman let go some of his bombs. We believed that we hit it, having dropped five bombs out of the ten we had left. ‘Good God, Erwin, make an end of it. Get rid of all of the bombs!’ I yelled. “In front of us there was suddenly a railway station. Extensive tracks

and several goods trains, all offering a rewarding target for the rest of our bombs.” It is possible that the station in question was Paddock Wood where twelve railway wagons were set alight, although it could equally have been at Rye where bombs straddled the railway line and destroyed twelve houses and damaged eleven more. Here, octogenarians Francis and John Bumsted were killed in their cottage at Godfrey’s Row along with their 42-yearold Home Guardsman son, George. 

ABOVE: The wreckage of one of the Junkers Ju 88s brought down by RAF fighters on 18 August 1940 – F1+GP of 6./KG 76 which crashed in an orchard at Church Farm, Aylesford, near West Malling, at about 13.40 hours. One of the crew was killed, the remaining three were captured. LEFT: Both Kathleen and her fiancé, Lionel Miller, survived the destruction caused by the bomb that fell at 121 Valley Road. Having recovered from their injuries, the pair eventually married – “First Air Raid Casualties Now Bride and Groom” ran the headline in the Coulsdon & Purley Times of Friday, 27 June 1941. (COURTESY OF NIGEL MILLER)

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SHOT DOWN BY THE HOME GUARD? OBERLEUTNANT RUDOLF Lamberty had been the pilot of the lead aircraft in the 9./KG 76 formation during its attack on Kenley. He had been skilfully directed to the target by his navigator, Hauptmann Joachim Roth, the unit’s Staffelkapitan. Over the airfield, however, Lamberty’s Do 17 had been engaged by ground fire and was, according to Feldwebel Wilhelm Raab, another of the unit’s pilots that day, possibly struck by the Parachute and Cable anti-aircraft apparatus. According to Raab, he later met Lamberty on the liner Duchess of York as it transported PoWs from the UK to Canada. Lamberty told him that a cable from the barrage had sliced into the Dornier’s wing and ruptured a fuel tank, the escaping petrol being ignited during a fighter attack. Whilst this may or may not have been the case, there is no obvious evidence visible of any cable strike in the numerous photographs taken of Lamberty’s crashed aircraft. Although RAF Air Intelligence only attributed the loss of Lamberty’s bomber to “AA fire after releasing its bombs on Kenley”, there was another claim for this raider. Passing low over Addington, and already in trouble, the Do 17 was fired on by a platoon of the Addington Home Guard led by a Captain Clarke, a total of 180 rounds of .303 ammunition being loosed off in the direction of the raider. “We saw the machine stagger and lose height and then smoke began to issue from it,” Clarke later reported. Lieutenant Bertie Miller, Clarke’s second in command, recalled many years later: “I gave the order to fire. We pumped 180 rounds towards the belly of the bomber. When it came down and the crew stepped out alive, they looked rather arrogant.” Although the “engagement” gave much for the press to report on, and later provided an excellent post-event reconstruction photograph opportunity, the reality is that the aircraft was destroyed by two Hurricane pilots – Sergeant W. Dymond and Sergeant R. Brown of 111 Squadron. Dymond recorded thus in his combat report: “I was leading yellow section and followed Green section down to attack a formation of Dornier 17s that were about to attack Kenley at 50ft. Attack was delivered from dead astern and enemy aircraft had both engines hit and it crashed in a field (approximately) three miles NE of Kenley. Enemy aircraft took evasive action by flying very low.” Brown, meanwhile, had also been caught up in the general melee with the Dorniers and noted that he “carried out another beam and quarter attack on another Do 17”, adding that “the enemy aircraft carried out very good low flying among trees and HT cables. I had to break away up and over the enemy after each five-second attack.” Brown also noted: “After this engagement I lost sight of the Dornier for a few seconds and on turning around saw a Dornier crashing into a cornfield by Biggin Hill aerodrome. I presume this was the aircraft I attacked.” With his aircraft ablaze, Lamberty managed to get the Dornier down at Leaves Green, close to Biggin Hill, but was badly burned in the blazing wreckage before he could struggle free. Similarly, Roth also suffered serious burns. The other three men on board, though, had remarkable escapes. Fearing that they were doomed in the blazing Dornier, they had jumped out at low level and, although two were injured, the third man, who opened his parachute in the cockpit, landed unhurt. The close proximity of the crash to RAF Biggin Hill has often given rise to the belief that Lamberty’s Dornier was shot down attacking that airfield, although this is not the case.

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ABOVE & ABOVE LEFT: Oberleutnant Ahrend’s stricken Dornier Do 17, caught either by Kenley’s Parachute and Cable defences, light anti-aircraft fire, or both, crashed into a house, “Sunnycroft”, in Golf Road, Kenley, at about 13.20 hours. In the impact, F1+HT demolished the building, the home of Mr Turner-Smith. All four crew men on board, as well as War Correspondent Oberst Dr Sommer, were killed.

DOG FIGHT The RAF fighters that had found themselves in position to attack the retreating raiders had been the Hurricanes of 111 Squadron. They were amongst the aircraft ordered off from Croydon and Kenley in a “survival scramble” moments before the Luftwaffe bombers had struck. One of the pilots had been 19-year-old Sergeant Harry Newton who takes up his own story after being scrambled: “The first thing that caught my attention was a row of houses being blown up by a stick of bombs. I was incensed and got so annoyed at these homes being blown up that I began to look around to see what had caused it. The first thing I saw was a Dornier 17 and I thought: ‘Here’s one that won’t get back!’ “I opened my hood as we were told to do before going into action, just in case we were trapped in the cockpit. I screamed down on him from the 5,000ft we had managed to climb to. I was going very fast and went straight into attack although he was right down on the deck. “I saw the rear gunner’s head pop up, then he swung the gun around and I saw his tracer coming straight towards me. I thought: ‘You’ve got one gun and I’ve got eight. You don’t stand a chance!’ I fired a burst, but it seemed to go over his starboard wing tip. Just a slight correction and I’d get him. Just at that moment though, he got me. “My cockpit seemed to just burst into flames, with most of the fire seeming to come from the Ki-Gas pump. With my hood open the flames were drawn up right over me. My oxygen mask burnt on my face, with the flow of oxygen aiding its burning. Strangely, I don’t remember feeling the heat. I closed my eyes really tightly. I wasn’t going blind for anyone! But I was so annoyed at the

thought of the Dornier getting away that I put my hands back into the flames and loosed off a burst in the direction I thought the Dornier was sitting. “I pulled the Hurricane up into a climb to get some height so that I could bale out and on the way up things in the cockpit began to get really hot. The flames burnt through my three pairs of gloves, my right leg was burnt – through the flying suit to my trouser leg, which in turn burnt away. I could feel the Hurricane going upwards, so I undid my seat straps and stood on my seat. At that time my great worry was that the fuel tank, immediately in front of the instrument panel, would blow up. Still keeping my eyes tightly shut I forced myself to stay with the aircraft as it got slower and slower in the climb and getting ready to push myself away. Then, all of a sudden, the engine stopped and I kicked the stick forward and threw myself over the left hand side and pulled the D-Ring. At that moment I opened my eyes and saw the tailplane flash past my right ear, about a foot away.”

DORNIER DOWN Newton’s quarry had, in fact, been the Dornier flown by Unteroffizier Gunther Unger. Unger also recalled the frantic action that day: “As I turned away from the airfield I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the crash of one of our Dorniers [Petersen’s Do 17] on the edge of the airfield. Almost at once I found that I was alone and the rest of the formation had left me behind. My Dornier had taken hits, and now had only one good engine. I pushed the nose down, even closer to the ground for safety, and was almost immediately attacked by several Hurricanes. “At first they attacked from the sides because that was where our armament www.britainatwar.com

LOW-LEVEL ATTACK Objective Kenley

was weakest, but by sticking very low and dodging behind trees and buildings I was able to make things very difficult for them. Then, they began to attack from the rear. My gunners were now able to reply to good effect and called that they had hit three of the fighters. I saw one myself as he came past me, a Hurricane, with its cockpit canopy shot away. He climbed vertically, streaming black smoke, and the pilot then baled-out.”2 Landing in the same field where his flaming Hurricane had impacted, Newton had seen a cluster of rifle barrels pointing menacingly up at him as he drifted down from the battle still raging around him. “Put those bloody things down” he yelled, “I’m on your side!” Picked up by the soldiers who had threatened him, Newton was taken to a nearby pill-box. A young couple on

a tandem bicycle had stopped nearby. As he approached, the young woman gasped and then turned ashen as a surprised Newton asked of the soldiers: “What on earth’s the matter with her?” At this point the girl fainted, so shocked was she by the young Sergeant pilot’s appearance. “I must have looked a mess” he later conceded. “My clothes were singed and tattered, I was covered in blood and everything was blackened and my face very badly burnt. Also, and rather shockingly, it was possible to see the moving parts inside my right hand where all the flesh had burnt away.”

TWO LUCKY ESCAPES According to Newton’s combat report he had baled-out at just 700 feet and had thus had a lucky escape, notwithstanding his injuries. There

were other lucky escapes that day, too. Amongst them, Gunther Unger himself: “We had been quite badly hit by the fighters and ground fire, one way and another. I had one engine out and feathered the propeller. One of the hits had severed a fuel pipe and petrol had started to leak into the cockpit. The Observer broke open the first aid kit and bound up the leak with sticking plaster. Luckily, though, nobody was wounded. “About five miles from the coast the fighters broke off their attacks, but I was still very low and to my horror I suddenly realised that there was insufficient power from my remaining engine to climb over the hills looming in front of me. There was only one thing for it. I un-feathered the dead engine and after the wildly wind-milling propeller had gathered momentum the engine roared back 

ABOVE LEFT: Part of the fuselage of Oberleutnant Ahrend’s Dornier under RAF guard at Golf Road, Kenley. Mr Turner-Smith, who was in his house at the time, had a remarkable escape. “I don’t know why I am still alive” he later told a reporter from the Evening News. His home was subsequently rebuilt. ABOVE An unconcerned pig forages amongst the scattered wreckage of Oberleutnant Ahrend’s Dornier Do 17.

The wreckage of Oberleutnant Rudolf Lamberty’s Do 17, F1+DT, at Leaves Green was well photographed. Fire quickly took hold in the already burning aircraft after it had come to a rest and all of the five men on board were taken prisoner, albeit injured. (COURTESY OF CHRIS GOSS)

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FEBRUARY 2014 79

LOW-LEVEL ATTACK Objective Kenley

ABOVE: Taken by war photographer Rolf von Pebal from Feldwebel Reichel’s Do 17, this image is believed to have been taken over France from the bomber during the final moments of its return flight on 18 August 1940. Unlike the outward journey, this time there are no other Dorniers in formation. ABOVE RIGHT: Oberleutnant Rudolf Lamberty of 9./KG 76 survived the events of 18 August 1940. (COURTESY OF CHRIS GOSS)

BELOW: Feldwebel Reichel’s Do 17 pictured after its crash-landing near Abbeville. (COURTESY OF CHRIS GOSS)

into life, just giving us enough power and altitude to clear the hills. “Then we were over the sea just as the life-saving engine packed up again. Now we were at 200 metres and heading slowly back home although the remaining engine was getting hotter and hotter and then, within sight of France, it began to misfire. Desperately, I tried again to re-start the starboard engine. But it was no good. Finally, the port motor gave up as well.” In the last moments before the Dornier hit the sea, Unger released the escape hatch, eased back on the control column and stalled the aircraft into the water. In a cloud of spray the aircraft hit the surface, tilted its tail high into the air and then settled horizontally supported by its high wings. Three of the crew made a hasty exit from the bomber, although Unger had been trapped in his seat by the control column which had come fully back and was pushing into his stomach. Slowly, the tail rose again as the aircraft sank head first from the rush of water that had cascaded in when the nose glazing collapsed on impact. As the elevators cleared the water, so Unger was able to push the control

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column forward and scramble free – although he was now underwater and being dragged down by the sinking bomber. Finally, Unger managed to inflate his lifejacket although he had thoughtlessly put his flying suit over the top of it when getting dressed. As a result, he had to struggle to find the inflation valve. Bobbing to the surface like a cork, the exhausted pilot joined up with his three crew members although all four would yet endure long hours in the Channel before being rescued and taken to Boulogne by a German minesweeper.

BELOW TREE-TOP HEIGHT For all of the eight remaining crews of 9./ KG 76 the return flight from Kenley had been fraught and bloody, and Petersen’s and Unger’s aircraft were not the only ones that failed to return to base. Low across the Home Counties the aircraft in which war photographer Rolf von Pebal was a passenger had its share of scrapes whilst being pursued and fired on by the RAF fighters. On the way out from Kenley von Pebal described a monumental crash in the front of the aircraft as the nose glazing

suddenly disintegrated and caved-in. At first, the crew feared a flak hit but a whirling flurry of leaves in the cockpit told its own story; they were so low they had struck a tree! Finally, and with the aircraft badly shot up, the pilot, Feldwebel Reichel, managed to limp back for a crash landing near Abbeville with one crew member wounded. Over the target the Dornier flown by Oberleutnant Hermann Magin had been hit by ground fire from a Lewis gun; a number of bullets struck Magin full in the chest. Slumping forward, Magin cried “Nach Hause!” (Go home!), as his hand fell from the control column, dripping blood, and his head sinking forward onto his chest. What followed was a remarkable piece of bravery and airmanship on the part of the Observer, Oberfeldwebel Wilhelm-Friedrich Illg. Also on board Magin’s Dornier was War Correspondent George Hinze, who remarked: “Had [Illg] not grabbed the control column in a split second then we would have gone into the ground like an arrow”. Indeed, Illg’s lightning reactions had saved the lives of the remaining crew and together with the Flight Engineer he managed to heave the mortally-wounded Magin from his seat.

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LOW-LEVEL ATTACK Objective Kenley

Hinze later described the erratic and convoluted “acrobatics” performed by the Dornier before the Observer could get into the pilot’s seat and his feet onto the rudder pedals. Remarkably, Illg managed to fly the battered bomber home and made a successful wheelsdown landing at St. Omer. For his actions that day, Oberfeldwebel Illg was awarded the coveted Knights Cross of the Iron Cross – the Ritterkreuz.

THE LAST ATTACK Whilst the 9th Staffel of KG 76 was embroiled in the attack and its aftermath, so the Dorniers of I Gruppe KG 76 were now arriving overhead at Kenley for their part in the raid although, by this time, higher flying RAF fighters from 32, 64 and 615 Squadrons were in position to engage these bombers and their escort. Leading the Spitfires of 64 Squadron, Squadron Leader A.R.D. MacDonell heard the controller call: “Bandits overhead!” Instinctively, he looked above him for the bombers. But there was only blue sky. Then, far below, he spotted bomb bursts and quickly led his squadron towards all the activity, at high speed and in a wide descending spiral. As he

did so, the Hurricanes of 32 and 615 Squadron were among the high level Dorniers with the formation being so disrupted that only a few managed to bomb Kenley. The others, forced to veer out of the way of the defending fighters, either went on to bomb RAF Croydon or took their bombs home. Not all of them, though, escaped. Oberleutnant Willi Stoldt’s aircraft was hit by Pilot Officer Alan Eckford of 32 Squadron. Stoldt was killed in Eckford’s attack along with his wireless operator, and although Feldwebel Beck and Oberfeldwebel Lautersack managed to bale out, both of them were wounded. Also on board was yet another War Correspondent, Oberleutnant Walter Surk. Surk failed to abandon the stricken bomber before it crashed, smashing itself to pieces at Warren Cottage, Hurst Green, Surrey, causing much damage to the cottage and scattering burning wreckage and unexploded bombs far and wide. Also getting a hard time were the Junkers Ju 88s of II Gruppe KG 76 which, mauled by the fighters of 32, 64, 501 and 615 Squadrons, lost two of their number. Both crashed in Kent; one at Ide Hill, the other at Aylesford.

THE END OF THE DAY Meanwhile, the tattered remnants of all the elements of KG 76 were straggling home. Many did not make it, or else brought home wounded, dead or dying crew members. Of 9./KG 76, all of the aircraft committed were either destroyed or damaged and all had dead or injured crew members. In total, four were destroyed and the remaining five returned damaged – most of them seriously. For all of the combatants involved in the Kenley attack on 18 August 1940, it had been a fiercely fought day. For very good reasons it would justifiably be dubbed “The Hardest Day” of the Battle of Britain. 

THE HARDEST DAY The author is indebted to Dr Alfred Price, author of The Hardest Day, for his assistance with this series of articles. First published in 1979, The Hardest Day is a classic account of one day’s events during the Battle of Britain. Based on extensive documentary research and interviews with surviving British and German participants, the author details the three major attacks undertaken by the Luftwaffe, and the resulting air combats, on 18 August 1940.

ABOVE LEFT: Personnel from nearby RAF Biggin Hill were soon on scene at Leaves Green to examine the wreckage of F1+DT. Pilots from Biggin Hill went on to remove a swastika panel from the bomber’s fin. It has survived and is today in the care of the RAF Museum. ABOVE RIGHT: Harry Newton (right) and Gunter Unger reminisce over their encounter above Kenley when they met in the late 1970s during the research for Dr Alfred Price’s book The Hardest Day. BELOW: Another view of Lamberty’s Dornier. Normally, the Do 17 carried a crew of four, but a fifth man, Hauptmann Gustav Peters, was also on board.

NOTES 1. 2.

Transcript of tape-recorded interview of Kathleen Miller (nee Rhodes), courtesy of Nigel Miller. In fact, the cockpit canopy that Unger thought had been “shot away” was simply the canopy that Newton had slid fully back before going into action.

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AIR VICE MARSHAL JAMES “JOHNNIE” JOHNSON CB, CBE, DSO & Two Bars, DFC & Bar Against all the odds, “Johnnie” Johnson survived the Second World War as the highest-scoring RAF ace of the conflict. In the latest article in his “Hero of the Month” series, Lord Ashcroft tells the story of a remarkable man who was also a great team player.

Jon Enoch/eyevine

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J

“

ohnnie” Johnson not only flew in more than 700 Spitfire combat missions during the Second World War but he was also the top-scoring RAF flying ace of the conflict with thirty-eight confirmed victories. Furthermore, he was awarded a staggering three DSOs and two DFCs, as well as other decorations both from home and abroad. Unlike many top fighter pilots who preferred to concentrate on their own flying, Johnson was an inspirational leader of men and trained, encouraged and led scores of Allied pilots. The son of a policeman, James Edgar Johnson was born on 9 March 1915 in Barrow upon Soar, Leicestershire, and educated at nearby Loughborough Grammar School. Later he attended Nottingham University, where he graduated as a qualified civil engineer in 1938. Despite starting flying lessons at his own expense, he applied, albeit unsuccessfully, for the part-time Auxiliary Air Force (AAF). His second application to the AAF was also unsuccessful, as was his initial application to the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve (RAFVR). As tensions mounted in Europe, Johnson enlisted in the Leicestershire Yeomanry. However, the RAFVR began to expand in early 1939 and his earlier application was reactivated. In December 1940, after his flying career was interrupted by an aggravated rugby injury, Johnson returned to 616 Squadron based at RAF Kirton in Lindsey, Lincolnshire, joining ‘A’ Flight and often flying as Hugh “Cocky” Dundas’s wingman. In a combat with an enemy Dornier, Johnson initially fired too soon but he learnt from his mistake and played his part, along with 

TOP: Johnnie Johnson pictured in 1941 sat in the cockpit of his 616 Squadron, Tangmerebased, Spitfire, an aircraft he famously had embellished with the words “Bader’s Bus Co. Still Running”. (ww2images)

ABOVE: A portrait of Wing Commander James Edgar Johnson DSO, DFC. (ww2images)

Lord Ashcroft’s “Hero of the Month” 16/01/2014 12:13

Dundas, in damaging the aircraft during a further attack, sending it limping back to Holland. In February 1941, 616 Squadron was posted back to 11 Group, joining 145 and 610 Spitfire Squadrons at RAF Tangmere, Sussex. The following month, the legendary Douglas Bader was appointed Wing Leader and he chose Johnson to fly alongside him.

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In May and June 1941, 616 Squadron flew Rhubarb operations, the name originating from the lowlevel at which they were flown. Bader’s search for the perfect flying formation saw him adopt the “Finger Four” in which Johnson was largely responsible for protecting Dundas. This restricted Johnson’s personal score but on 26 June 1941 he achieved his first “kill” in a dogfight with a Messerschmitt Bf 109. Johnson later wrote: “I was dead line astern of the Messerschmitt and hit him behind the cockpit with the eight machine-guns. As the range closed I contrived to spray the 109 with bullets and the Pilot half rolled on to his back and jettisoned his hood ... I hammered him once more.” When Johnson started flying regular sweeps – one of nine pilots chosen for the role (as opposed to flying point patrols or convoy duties) – his score soon escalated. Johnson

ABOVE: A group photograph of personnel from

Nos. 610 and 616 squadrons: Douglas Bader can be seen in the centre of the front row. Johnnie Johnson is sitting in the second row, third from the right. (Courtesy of Chris Goss)

LEFT: Wing Commander J.E. Johnson, wing

leader of No. 144 (Canadian) Wing, sitting in the cockpit of his Supermarine Spitfire Mark IX at Ford, Sussex, in May 1944. (Imperial War Museum; CH13127)

destroyed two enemy aircraft on 6 and 14 July 1941, having already damaged one on 4 July. On 21 July, he claimed a shared “kill” but on the same day he lost his wingman, Sergeant Sydney Mabbett, a tragedy that affected him greatly. On 9 August 1941, Johnson was flying in an operation when Bader was shot out of the sky. Five days later the news arrived that Bader was a PoW. Johnson wanted to show the wing was still very much up for the fight, embellishing his Spitfire with the words: “BADER’S BUS Co. STILL RUNNING.” On 30 September 1941, Johnson’s DFC was

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16/01/2014 12:14

Lord

RIGHT: Johnnie Johnson, on the far left, pictured with other officers at his billet at Rushmans in Oving – an image taken during his time at Tangmere. (Courtesy of Chris Goss) MAIN PICTURE BELOW: Johnnie Johnson pictured beside his personal Spitfire, Mk.IX EN398 JE-J, in 1943. He selected this Spitfire after a fiftyminute test flight on 22 March 1943, it going on to be the aircraft in which he scored a large number of his thirty-eight victories. (ww2images) announced, his recommendation stating: “Pilot Officer Johnson has taken part in 46 sweeps over enemy territory. He has at all times by his cheerful courage been a great asset to the Squadron. He has the following enemy aircraft to his credit: 4.5 Destroyed, 2 Probables, 1.5 Damaged.” At the same time, Johnson was appointed as Commander of ‘B’ Flight. By now, the character of 616 Squadron was changing: there were many young, foreign pilots in its ranks and Johnson was the sole survivor from the 1940 pilots. The Bar to Johnson’s DFC was announced on 26 June 1942, when his recommendation concluded that he “has been an inspiration to the Pilots under his command, and his cheerful countenance at all times has done much to foster a high morale in the Squadron.” Johnson was appointed to the command of 610 (County of Chester) Squadron, based at RAF Coltishall, Norfolk, in July 1942 and was given the rank of acting squadron leader. At this time 610 Squadron was part of 12 Group, but Johnson wanted it to be part of 11 Group for the combat “season”. Initially, Johnson and the men under his command had to accept shipping reconnaissance and convoy patrols but then came the opportunity for them to make their mark: the Dieppe Raid, codenamed Operation Jubilee. Early on 19 August 1942, the squadron took off to provide top cover for Nos. 411 (Royal Canadian Air Force) and 486 (Royal

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New Zealand Air Force) squadrons, which had been tasked with preventing enemy aircraft from attacking the Allied ground forces. For Johnson and others involved in the thick of the fighting, it was to be an unforgettable day of relentless and daring aerial combat action, which included what he later assessed was his hardest dog-fight of the war: “We sparred for about a minute and I tried my usual tactic of trying to turn inside the enemy, but after a couple of turns I was making no headway, and, in fact, he was gaining on me!” Eventually, both pilots lived to fight another day. By early 1943, Johnson was due to be rested but, instead, he was promoted to wing commander and given command of the Kenley Wing (Nos. 403 and 416 (Royal Canadian Air Force) squadrons), which were re-equipped with Spitfire IXs. At this stage, he also adopted the call sign “Greycap” and, despite expert advice that it would be safer to change it periodically, kept it for the rest

of the war. As a wing commander, he took up the privilege of substituting the Spitfire’s three initials for his own “JE-J”, even though he was again warned that this would attract unwanted “attention” from the enemy. Johnson’s DSO was announced on 4 June 1943, when his recommendation concluded: “He is an outstanding Wing Leader and in my opinion his leadership expressed in his cheerful, forceful personality is largely responsible for the high morale and success of the Kenley Wing. Wing Commander Johnson puts the success of his Wing first on all occasions.” The Canadian pilots thrived under Johnson’s leadership 

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RIGHT: Air Vice Marshal James “Johnnie” Johnson’s medal group which includes no less than three DSOs and two DFCs, as well as other decorations both from home and abroad. (Courtesy of the Lord Ashcroft Collection)

BELOW LEFT: Wing Commander J.E. Johnson,

leader of No. 144 (Canadian) Wing RAF, rests on the wing of his Spitfire Mk.IX, with his Labrador retriever Sally, between sorties at B2/Bazenville, Normandy, on 31 July 1944. (ww2images)

BELOW RIGHT: Air Vice Marshal Johnnie Johnson

recreates the 1944 scene by posing on the wing of a Spitfire at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in July 2000. (Stefan Rousseau/PA Archive)

and over that spring and summer shot down more than 100 enemy aircraft on fourteen missions over North-West Europe. As a mark of their respect for their Wing Commander, Johnson complied with their request to sport “CANADA” shoulder-flashes. The first Bar to Johnson’s DSO was announced on 24 September 1943 when his recommendation stated: “Since the citation of the award of the D.S.O. to this Officer on 17 May, he has completed 41 offensive sorties, during which he has personally destroyed a further 7.5 enemy aircraft while damaging another. During the same period the Wing under his leadership has destroyed 27, probably destroyed 3 and damaged 30. This is considered to be a magnificent effort for [a] two months period and is due in large part to the skilful leadership and relentless determination to engage the enemy displayed by this Wing Leader.” That September Johnson was also ordered off operations to undertake a staff role at Uxbridge, north-west London. Here he worked with the USAAF co-ordinating escorts, but he continued to “keep his eye in” by occasionally flying with Spitfire IX and Spitfire XII combat units. March 1944 saw Johnson appointed wing commander flying of 144 Wing, which comprised of Nos. 441, 442 and 443 squadrons, Royal Canadian Air Force. By now, with twenty-five official victories, his score was closing in on the record total of “Sailor” Malan, who was no longer flying operationally. On 5 June 1944, the day before the D-Day landings, his Wing was instructed to protect

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part to the invading force’s eastern flank from air attack. On D-Day itself, Johnson led his men on several sorties over the invasion beaches. Johnson’s second Bar to his DSO was announced on 7 July 1944. His recommendation described him as “a leader who combines the complete confidence and respect of his Pilots, combined with an untiring patience and energy on his part”. By 23 August 1944, Johnson’s official tally had drawn equal with Malan’s thirtytwo “kills”. He destroyed two more Bf 109s on 5 July and was fêted by the Press. With typical generosity, Johnson suggested Malan’s achievements were superior since he had flown from 1940-1 when he had less protection in the air and was frequently outnumbered by the enemy. By now Johnson, and his faithful Labrador, Sally, were enjoying great public acclaim. On 27 September 1944, Johnson claimed his final victory, shooting down a Bf 109 at Rees on Rhine. In March 1945 he was promoted to group captain and was also given the command of 125 Wing that had been equipped with new Spitfire Mk.IVs. Johnson’s verdict on the aircraft was that it was a “nice, fast flying machine ... but it’s not a Spitfire any more”. Before and after the end of hostilities, Johnson was given numerous decorations by other Allied countries. He was awarded the American DFC on 18 January 1944, as well as the Belgian Order of Leopold and Croix de Guerre in January 1947. After the war, Johnson was given the task of organising a victory show over Denmark. He then continued to serve in Germany until 1946 before serving in

Canada and the US, and completing a threemonth tour of active service in the Korean War. The 1950s saw him become an author too: in 1956 he published his autobiography Wing Leader. The 1960s saw more promotions – to air commodore in 1960 and to air vice marshal in 1963 when he was posted to Aden as Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Air Forces Middle East. Furthermore, Johnson was awarded the Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in June 1965, on top of his earlier Commander of the British Empire (CBE) announced on New Year’s Day 1960. Johnson retired in 1966 and, afterwards, worked for various British, Canadian and South African companies, as well as founding the Johnnie Johnson Housing Trust to provide homes for thousands of elderly and disabled people. Johnson died from cancer on 30 January 2001, aged eight-five. I purchased his medals in December 2001 for a hammer price of £241,500, then the world record price for an RAF group at auction. ■ HEROES OF THE SKIES

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is a Conservative peer, businessman, philanthropist and author. The story of Johnson’s life appears in his book Heroes of the Skies. For more information visit: www.heroesoftheskies.com. Lord Ashcroft’s VC and GC collection is on public display at the Imperial War Museum in London. For more information visit: www.iwm.org.uk/heroes. For details about his VC collection, visit: www.lordashcroftmedals.com For more information on Lord Ashcroft’s work, visit: www.lordashcroft.com. Follow him on Twitter: @LordAshcroft

16/01/2014 12:14

FROM PEERS TO PRIESTS The Admiralty's Room 40

From Peers To Priests The Brains Behind Room 40 and the Mysteries That Remain Breaking and analyzing enemy wireless messages was of crucial importance during the First World War and was work undertaken by a highly secret group of individuals. Jane Dismore reveals the identity of the members of this exclusive organisation.

A

S THE war clouds gathered over Europe, Britain was still licking its wounds from the Second Boer War. It had, however, learned lessons from its failings and a vital turning point in the development of defence management in Britain had started in 1902. The Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) was formed out of its naval and military antecedents; now its members included the Prime Minister, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Secretary of State for War, the First Sea Lord and the heads of naval and military intelligence. The CID’s war plans were drawn up in

a War Book which was put into operation in summer 1914. It had already been decided that in the event of war with Germany, its submarine cables should be destroyed. Consequently in August 1914 Germany’s trans-Atlantic cables, and those running between Britain and Germany, were cut. Immediately there was an increase in messages sent via cables belonging to other countries and messages sent by wireless. The latter could be intercepted, by the Navy’s wireless stations, by installations belonging to the Post Office and Marconi, and by individuals with access

to wireless equipment. Interception, though, was no use without the means of decoding and interpretation, and Britain did not yet have an established organisation for doing this. 

Admiral Sir William Reginald “Blinker” Hall, KCMG, CB, RN, was the Director of Naval Intelligence from October 1914 (taking over from Captain Henry Oliver) through to 1919. Together with the physicist and engineer Sir James Alfred Ewing, Hall was responsible for establishing the Royal Navy’s code-breaking operation, Room 40. (ALL IMAGES

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR UNLESS

STATED OTHERWISE)

The Old Admiralty in Whitehall, or the Ripley building as it was officially known, was built in 1726. At the start of the First World War it became the home of Room 40. This organisation was located in the northern section of the first floor, on the same corridor as the boardroom and First Sea Lord’s office. (COURTESY OF ROBERT MITCHELL)

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FROM PEERS RIGHT: The first big breakthrough for Room 40 came with the capture of the Signalbuch der Kaiserlichen Marine (SKM), or signal codebook, from the German light cruiser SMS Magdeburg – seen here. Magdeburg ran aground on the island of Odensholm off the coast of Russian controlled Estonia on 26 August 1914. (BUNDESARCHIV;

BILD 146-2007-0221/ CC-BY-SA)

BELOW: A sample page from a captured SKM. The SMS Magdeburg carried more than one copy of the SKM; it was copy No.151 which was passed to the British. Whilst German accounts generally state that most secret papers were thrown overboard, the copy passed to Room 40 was undamaged and reportedly found in the charthouse.

ROOM 40 The plans that were initiated were known only to a few of Britain’s top leaders, a select band of individuals which included Winston Churchill, who since 1911 had been First Lord of the Admiralty, the Cabinet Minister in charge of Admiralty and Royal Navy Affairs. The eventual result was the establishment, in October 1914, of Room 40. Located in the old Admiralty Building, the members of this intelligence organisation went on to achieve, amongst other glories, the breaking of the Zimmermann Telegram which led to America’s entry into the war in April 1917.

Today its location is hard to find. Finding accurate accounts of some of the men and women who worked there is also difficult. What is known is that there was an eclectic mix, from peers to publishers, actors to academics, who were recruited for their language and intellectual skills. Room 40 did not physically exist at first. Initially messages began arriving at the Admiralty Intelligence Division in August 1914 and its director, Rear Admiral Henry Oliver, realised he needed an expert. He therefore appointed Alfred Ewing, the Director of Naval Education, who had sat on a pre-war Admiralty committee on codes and ciphers. Ewing initially turned for help to language teachers from the two naval colleges. The earliest volunteers included Alistair Denniston, a German teacher at Osborne and an excellent linguist, though with no knowledge of cryptography, W.H. “Bill” Anstie, a language teacher from Dartmouth, and two naval instructors. Working in Ewing’s normal office, their first task was to learn the basics of the codes and ciphers. However, the War Office urgently needed more codebreakers to deal with intelligence being received from the Western Front, so Denniston and Anstie were despatched to the department known as MI1(b), part of the British Military Intelligence. Ewing kept the naval instructors and took on Lord Herschell – the first of the aristocrats to be recruited. He was an excellent linguist, an expert on Persia and a friend of the Spanish king. His background was also impeccable. He had been Lord-in-Waiting to Edward VII and George V and his father had been Chancellor under Gladstone.

CAPTURED CODEBOOKS Little successful deciphering took place in the first few weeks despite Ewing’s men’s efforts. A breakthrough came later in August, and then in October, when two codebooks captured from the Germans came into British hands. Once the cipher and code were known, a “pianola”, or punched card machine, was used to decode messages. Soon it became clear that this new organisation needed to be formalised and have a proper base; volunteers could not keep hiding in Ewing’s secretary’s room whenever a visitor came to see him on normal business. In early November 1914 Oliver was replaced by much-lauded Reginald “Blinker” Hall (later Admiral) as Director of Admiralty Intelligence Division, and on 6 November the group moved to a cluster of rooms known as Room 40 O.B. in a quiet part of the old Admiralty buildings in London. Then formal instructions were given. On 11 November Churchill sent a memo to Ewing and Oliver – now the Navy’s Chief of Staff – saying someone, preferably from Intelligence Division, should be selected to study all the decoded intercepts, current and past, and to compare them continually with what actually took place “in order to penetrate the German mind and movements and make reports”. He said all the intercepts were to be written in a locked book with their decodes, and all other copies “collected and burnt”. All new messages were to be entered in the book, which was to be handled only under direction from the Chief of Staff. The officer selected was to do no other work for the time being. Churchill said he wanted Ewing to “associate himself continuously with this work”. This meant that Oliver alone would receive

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S TO PRIESTS ABOVE: As attempts were made to refloat Magdeburg, a pair of Russian cruisers arrived on the scene and engaged the German warship. The German crew destroyed the forward section of their ship, but could not complete its destruction before the Russians reached and boarded her. In their subsequent search of Magdeburg, the Russians located three codebooks along with a current encryption key. (BUNDESARCHIV;

BILD 134-B2501/CC-BY-SA)

and assess the intelligence (although this could result in misinterpretation) and draw up recommendations for the navy to react to.

WHO WERE THE CODEBREAKERS? With Churchill’s support the organisation grew. In March 1915 Room 40 was faced with a new “hatted” code. Progress on it was slow and by May 1916 it was clear a codebreaking machine was necessary. Leave was given for a special staff of educated women to work the machinery, speeding up the process. Unfortunately, while all the messages deciphered in Room 40 were released fairly soon after the end of the war – statesmen and diplomats could not give a faithful account of their stewardship

without quoting messages deciphered in Room 40 – there is limited information about the people who worked there. Of that information, there does not seem to be a single accurate account of them. The identity of some of the main members of Room 40 is not in doubt: some have been honoured with their own biographies. In addition to those mentioned there was, for example, Captain (later Admiral) Herbert Hope, the naval expert appointed to explain what the decoded intercepts actually meant. Assistant Paymaster Charles Rotter discovered the key to one of the codebooks; Alfred Dillwyn “Dilly” Knox, a socially awkward, brilliant classicist and linguist, was said to be the most gifted of the codebreakers. There was Frank Tiarks from a big banking 

ABOVE: A portrait of Earl Lytton taken in 1910. His wife and children were not aware that he was in Room 40, only that he was working at the Admiralty. Indeed, his daughter, Lady Hermione (who later married Cameron Cobbold, Governor of the Bank of England), wrote in her memoirs: “Father was working at the Admiralty and would bicycle there every morning.  His umbrella was strapped to the bar of his bicycle and Vincent (the butler) would hand him his trouser clips and his hat.” (COURTESY OF THE KNEBWORTH HOUSE ARCHIVE) BELOW: Following the Russian offer of the copies of Magdeburg’s codebooks, the Edgar-class protected cruiser HMS Theseus (seen here) was despatched from Scapa Flow to Alexandrovosk in order to collect them. Although Theseus arrived on 7 September 1914, she did not depart until 30 September and returned to Scapa with the documents on 10 October. The books were formally handed over to the First Lord, Winston Churchill, on 13 October 1914. The capture of the codebooks provided the Royal Navy with a significant advantage as the British were now able to track the movements of most German warships.

"Working in Ewing’s normal office, their first task was to learn the basics of the codes and ciphers."

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FROM PEERS RIGHT: Sir Alfred Ewing was one of the founders of Room 40. From 1914 to May 1917 he effectively managed the operation.

ABOVE RIGHT: A third codebook fell into the hands of Room 40 following the Battle off Texel, also known as the Action off Texel, on 17 October 1914. During this engagement, a British squadron consisting of one light cruiser, HMS Undaunted, and four destroyers encountered a group of four German torpedo boats. The latter, depicted here under fire, were all sunk. An unexpected result of this naval engagement came on 30 November 1914, when a British fishing trawler working the area (Admiral Hall is reported as later claiming the vessel had been searching deliberately) pulled up a sealed lead-lined chest that had been thrown off S119 during the action.

family, and Nigel de Grey, the brains behind the deciphering of the crucial Zimmermann Telegram. This famous message was sent in January 1917 via Washington from Germany’s Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German Ambassador to Mexico, offering territory in the USA – then neutral – in return for joining the German cause. Yet of other members of Room 40 – the Roman Catholic priest, the dress designer, the publisher, the famous actor, the art expert – either too little is known, or there has been confusion about their names, resulting in misidentification. The difficulty is that no information could be released about the people of Room 40 for decades because some went on to work for Bletchley Park; also many records were lost or destroyed. Even the obituaries of a number of those who worked in Room 40 did not mention this fact.

THE EYES OF THE NAVY Among the few records that remain are notes made by William Francis Clarke. The son of the Solicitor-General, he

was a barrister who gave up law for the Navy when war broke out. In early 1916 he was recruited to Room 40 as an analyst. In 1952 he was asked to write a book about Room 40. Though this was never published, his notes remain and include a brief reference to the staff. He refers also to books by others before him and to the fact that they were often unreliable. Even today it seems there cannot be complete certainty. One recruit Clarke mentions is “R. Vaughan-Williams”. Some have assumed he was the famous composer and pianist. However, Clarke says he was the son of a judge he knew, which means it cannot be the composer: his father was a vicar. Admiral Sir William James worked with “Blinker” Hall and wrote a book about him in 1955, The Eyes of the Navy. In it he refers to Hall recruiting “Mr Vaughan-Williams KC” (King’s Counsel). It is likely that he was Roland Edmund Lomax Vaughan Williams, born in 1866, who was a KC and the son of a judge of the Appeal Court. Besides, the composer had a well-documented, very active war career, which would

not have allowed much time for codebreaking. An intriguing member whose contribution to Room 40 is unknown is the actor Gerald Lawrence, mainly a stage actor who had made his film debut in 1899 in a three-minute film, married three times and had a daughter who became an actress. One very significant member referred to by Clarke and others was Lord Lytton. He would head the department which tackled intercepted mail from neutral countries that were suspected of being in code or cipher. However, it is sometimes unclear as to whether “Lord Lytton” refers to father or son. A recent book on Room 40 refers to Lytton in 1879 in his role as Viceroy of India. That was Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl Lytton, Viceroy of India from 1876 to 1880. The British were afraid that local Indian rulers may be conspiring with Russia and were anxious to find out what was happening. Robert, in Simla, was aware of the need to intercept Russian messages and indicated there may be a key to the cipher. In 1904 an

The area known as “The Heads” at Port Phillip in Australia; it was in this area that Room 40 had another important and early breakthrough. Having boarded and seized the German steamer Hobart which was at anchor off The Heads, Captain J.T. Richardson RAN, the District Naval Officer Victoria, was able to seize the ship’s Handelsverkehrsbuch (HVB) codebook. This contained the code used by the German navy to communicate with its merchant ships and also within the High Seas Fleet. Though news of the HVB’s capture was not passed to London until 9 September 1914, a copy was made and sent by the fastest available steamer, arriving at the end of October.

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S TO PRIESTS interception unit was set up in Simla, and that same year British warships were first ordered to intercept and send on wireless messages from all around the world’s oceans. However, whilst Lytton is mentioned in respect of Room 40, it is often missed that by then it was Robert’s son, Victor. In 1891 Victor Bulwer-Lytton was just fifteen when he became 2nd Earl Lytton on the death of his father. Born in Simla, grandson of the famed Victorian novelist, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Victor took a history degree from Cambridge in 1898. His marriage in 1902 to society beauty, Pamela Chichele-Plowden, attracted attention, for she had been the first love of Winston Churchill, who she left for the Earl. Fortunately the three remained on good terms and Churchill often visited stately Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, the family’s home since 1500.

LIKE FATHER LIKE SON Clarke says of Victor, “Charming personality. Later became Viceroy of India” (in fact, he was Governor of Bengal 1922-1927 and Acting Viceroy of India in 1926). Victor was a man

of his time, championing women’s suffrage, a pioneer of the arts and a writer. After joining the Admiralty in 1916, he was appointed Civil Lord of the Admiralty that December. In this post he was a non-Cabinet minister, his main responsibility being for the Royal Navy’s large civilian staff: the Admiralty then had far more civilian employees than the War Office or Air Ministry. It is likely Lytton was recommended for the post by Winston Churchill. That Lytton should also be found in Room 40 is perhaps surprising given his wider duties as Civil Lord. But Churchill knew Lytton and his abilities well. Churchill himself was situated nearby: his residence as First Lord of the Admiralty was adjacent to Room 40. According to Clarke in his narrative to his notes, Lord Lytton certainly made a mark in Room 40, and says he was, “even more worthy of mention” than some others. His time there may have been brief, though Lytton still seems to have been there in March 1917 when a letter was sent to him from M11(b) attesting to the co-operation between the two units. Yet at some point during 1917 until 1918 he was (at least officially) Additional Parliamentary Secretary, followed in 1918 by British Commissioner of Propaganda in France. He became Civil Lord again from 1919-1920. Clarke also refers to Lytton’s secretary, Miss Ruth Page, “Probably the oldest inhabitant”, who received wages of fifty-nine shillings and sixpence a week.

ACCEPTABLE SECURITY RISKS Of the women recruited into Room 40, again inaccurate assumptions have been made. Clarke is useful in his comments but the frequent mention he makes of the women’s backgrounds may serve a greater purpose than simply being his keenness to list their social pedigree, as has been suggested. It may be because of the vetting process that applied to women. A formal process of recruitment, previously used in the Foreign and Diplomatic Service, was just being www.britainatwar.com

THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM Until America’s entry into the war, the Germans had been permitted to make limited use of its communication systems, including its trans-Atlantic cables. It was by this method that a telegram was sent, via Washington and unusually in code, to Heinrich von Eckardt, the German ambassador to Mexico, on 19 January 1917. However, the US cable ran through a relay station at Porthcurno in Cornwall, from where all such messages were copied to British intelligence. Room 40 was soon at work on the telegram’s contents. Once the telegram, seen here as sent, had been decoded (work that was partially complete by 20 January), Nigel de Grey and William Montgomery learned of the German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann’s offer to Mexico of US territory, in the form of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, as an enticement to join the war as a German ally. The telegram was eventually made public by the United States, which declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917, entering the war on the Allied side. (NARA)

introduced into the intelligence arena. For men, being from the right sort of family was an important factor. Most of the early secret service officers had elite backgrounds and came from wealthy families with longstanding government, military and commercial connections. The importance of women as wives to men in the Foreign and Colonial Offices and the Diplomatic Service had never been underestimated. Their role as diplomatic hostesses, and for maintaining the familial atmosphere so important when abroad, was vital. When it came to secret work, however, there was concern as to how patriotic women could be expected to be. After all, they did not have the vote and were not expected to fight for their country. Instead it was decided that a woman’s true and overriding loyalties were familial ones. It was believed that although she may not keep a state secret for reasons of civic or patriotic duty, 

TOP LEFT: The last of the German torpedo boats sinks during the Battle off Texel. When opened the chest recovered after the engagement was found to contain a copy of the Verkehrsbuch (VB) codebook normally used by Flag officers of the German Navy. Thereafter the event was referred to by Room 40 as “the miraculous draft of fishes”. (HMP)

LEFT: Lady Sybil Hambro was one of the women who worked in Room 40.

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FROM PEERS TO PRIESTS The Admiralty's Room 40 RIGHT: Part of the Zimmermann Telegram as it was decoded by the cryptographers of Room 40. Because Arizona had only been admitted to the U.S. in 1912, the word “Arizona” was not in the German codebook and had therefore to be split into phonetic syllables. FAR RIGHT: A version of the decoded Zimmermann Telegram as it appeared in plain text. (NARA)

she would do so for love of husband, children, parents and kin. Intelligence officers also decided to vet women through their male connections and those who were well connected to men of status, integrity or patriotism were deemed acceptable security risks.

OTHER WOMEN A significant woman in Room 40 mentioned by Clarke was “Lady (Sybil) [Clarke’s brackets] Hambro”, the supervisor of the women in Room 40. He writes: “Wife of a city magnate. Charming personality. Smoked cigars which startled Captain Hope.” It has been recently and wrongly asserted that Lady Hambro was Ebba, (second) wife of banker Sir Everard Hambro. However, Sybil was his daughter-in-law. The petite Sybil was a very talented and unconventional woman, who did indeed smoke cigars (as her granddaughter recalls). She had been married since 1894 to Sir Everard’s son, Charles Eric Hambro, who later replaced his father as head of the long-established banking dynasty. In 1919 she would become Lady Hambro when Eric was knighted by George V as gratitude for his work in the war effort. This included Eric’s involvement in 1915 in talks with the Swedish government to persuade them to allow the free transit of goods

across Sweden to Russia. Her husband’s patriotic success would have been a factor in recruiting Sybil, as would her own birth into an old banking family and her descent from the Marquess of Bute. That having been said, she had her own skills. Sybil spoke several languages with ease and had the sort of enquiring mind that to some made her eccentric but which equipped her well for Room 40. She may well have felt she was doing something to stop the situation

THE BATTLE OF DOGGER BANK Room 40 played an important role in several naval engagements during the First World War, notably in detecting major German sorties into the North Sea that led to the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland: this painting depicts the former. Decoded radio intercepts provided by Room 40 had given advance warning that a German raiding squadron was heading for Dogger Bank (a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about sixty miles off the east coast of England), so a large Royal Navy force was despatched to intercept it. On 24 January 1915, the British found the Germans at the expected time and place; surprised, the smaller and slower German squadron fled for home. During a stern chase lasting several hours, the British slowly caught up with the Germans and engaged them with long-range gunfire. Since the British lost no ships (though HMS Lion was out of action for many months) and suffered few casualties, while the Germans lost a ship (SMS Blücher) and most of its crew, the action was considered a British victory. (HMP)

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that had already seen her half-brother, an interpreter with the Intelligence Corps, killed in September 1914, and her eldest son commissioned as an officer into the Coldstream Guards in 1915, aged just eighteen. Among the secretarial staff was Clarke’s own secretary, “Miss V Hudson, daughter of the soap magnate”. Violet, born in 1898, was the youngest child of Robert William Hudson, head of the soapflake manufacturing business started by his father. She was clearly keen on her work: “Used to arrive at unearthly hour in morning. Very nice child.” Other female staff whose backgrounds are mentioned include Joan Harvey, born in 1898, daughter of Ernest Musgrove Harvey, a director and later Deputy Governor of the Bank of England and Baronet. Joan would be selected to serve at Bletchley Park during the Second World War and died unmarried in 1949, predeceasing her father. Following peace in November 1918 the doors of Room 40 were opened. As Admiral Sir William James remarked, “the charwomen” could “walk in and give the rooms their first proper cleaning for four years”. Some of Room 40’s secrets may never be known, some of its members will never be fully appreciated, but they were all vital to Britain’s role in the First World War. 

SOURCES:

Jane Dismore, The Voice From the Garden: Pamela Hambro and the Tale of Two Families Before and After the Great War (Bristol, SilverWood Books, 2012). Paul Gannon, Inside Room 40: the Codebreakers of 1 World War 1(Surrey, Ian Allan Publishing, 2010). Admiral Sir William James, The Eyes of the Navy (London (London, Methuen & Co Ltd., 1955). Tammy M. Proctor, “Family Ties in the Making of Modern Intelligence”, The Journal of Social History, Vol 39. No.2 (George Mason University Press) Winter 2005.  Adrienne Wilmoth Lerner, “Room 40”, Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence and Security, 2004. warwick.ac.uk/-lysic/1920s/lyttonlord.htm. Files held at the National Archives, Kew.

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THE FLYING TANKS D-Day Landings 1944

THE FLYING

TANKS I

T WAS initially designated the Armoured Reconnaissance Group. Its purpose during the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944 was, according to the instructions delivered by Major General Sir Richard Nelson “Windy” Gale, to form a “small but firm base” outside the 6th Airborne

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Division’s landing area from which it would carry out deep reconnaissance and seek to impede and delay any enemy movement from the east and south-east upon the city of Caen. It would have to operate independently, receiving no support from the rest of the division.1 

MAIN PICTURE: By the artisit Terence Cuneo, this scene depicts an airborne assault underway during the Second World War. Note that Cuneo has included a number of General Aircraft Limited GAL. 49 Hamilcar gliders and Light Tank Mk VII Tetrarchs. (NATIONAL ARCHIVES)

On only one occasion during the Second World War were large numbers of tanks flown into battle. That occasion was the Normandy landings of June 1944.

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ABOVE: A Tetrarch exits a Hamilcar glider. One of the Tetrarch’s most unusual features is the steering system which worked by turning the road wheels and actually bending the tracks so that on large-radius turns it could be driven more or less like a wheeled vehicle. (COURTESY OF THE TANK MUSEUM)

LANDING ON D-DAY “CASTING OFF the air was crowded with other gliders, parachutes and discarded tow ropes and we went down steeply on full-flap, turning through 180°. Without warning there came a tremendous jolting crash and the glider was partly stalled by colliding with another glider we hadn’t seen, and we only had 600 feet to regain control. “Control was regained, just in time to round out but there was no time for anything else. We landed sideways, rushing through the tall French corn to a juddering halt. My first pilot turned to me and said ‘Time for a cup of char Tom’. We had two flasks strapped above our heads; one was still intact.”

Staff Sergeant Tom Pearce, Glider Pilot Regiment

This force, which later took on the name of its commander Colonel R.G. “Reggie” Parker, was composed of ‘A’ Company, 12th Battalion, The Devonshire Regiment, 211th Light Battery Royal Artillery with eight 75mm pack howitzers, a troop of the 3rd Anti-Tank Battery with four 6-pounder anti-tank guns, along with detachments of Royal Engineers and the Royal Army Medical Corps. The main component of “Parkerforce”, however, was the 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment (6th AARR). The regiment’s ‘A’ Squadron consisted of a Headquarters Squadron with three Tetrarch Light Tanks and five troops each, also with three Tetrarchs. A further two Tetrarchs were with Regimental Headquarters, making a total of twenty tanks. ‘B’ and

‘C’ squadrons were equipped with a number of Universal Carriers, Jeeps, and motorcycle units. It was an ambitious plan to fly tanks into enemy territory and then to place them in advance of the infantry to hold up enemy counter-attacks, as the Germans were likely to be able to bring heavier armour against the light British tanks. The Tetrarch was only lightly armoured and only equipped with a 2-pounder main gun and a single co-axial Besa machine-gun. The Tetrarchs would stand little chance against German tanks. Just how risky an operation it was likely to be for Parkerforce was made clear in another paragraph in “Windy” Gale’s instructions to Colonel Parker: “You will bear in mind that your task cannot be carried out if your force is liquidated. Whilst you must be prepared to fight to achieve your object, you will avoid static battle in circumstances which in your opinion will result in the annihilation of your force.”2

OPERATION MALLARD For its involvement in Operation Overlord, it had been planned that the 6th Airborne Division would use approximately 350 gliders, the majority of which were Airpseed Horsas that would transport the men and equipment of the 6th Airlanding Brigade. Thirty-four of the larger

BELOW: A Hamilcar in flight being towed by a Handley Page Halifax. The Hamilcar was the largest Allied wooden glider of the war with a wingspan of 110 feet and a load capacity of seven tons which meant that it could carry medium artillery pieces (such as a 17-pounder anti-tank gun and tractor or a 25-pounder and tractor), or a light tank, or jeeps, or two universal carriers, amongst a large range of associated equipment. (HMP)

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THE FLYING TANKS D-Day Landings 1944 FAR LEFT: The view of the interior of a Hamilcar, showing steel fastenings being connected, by men of the 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaisance Regiment, to the rear of a Tetrarch.

(COURTESY OF THE TANK MUSEUM)

tanks – and waited. Some accounts state that their engines were started whilst still airborne; others suggest this was done immediately on landing. When the gliders came to a halt, a release mechanism was activated which would cause the nose of the Hamilcar to swing open, allowing the tanks to roll out onto the ground. Soon they were approaching the landing zones and the gliders were cast off at between 1,000 and 2,000 feet. The landing zones were marked with large white letters and white smoke markers were lit both to indicate the where the zones were and to show the wind direction. Moments later the Hamilcars started touching down and the first tanks in history had been landed by air to the battlefield. General Aircraft Limited GAL. 49 Hamilcar gliders were also deployed. It was intended that four of the Hamilcars would land in Landing Zone ‘N’ (LZ-N), to the north of Ranville, between 03.24 hours and 03.34 hours in support of the operations of the 3rd and 5th Parachute Brigades.3 These four gliders were each loaded with a 17-pounder anti-tank gun and its transport vehicles and crews. The remaining thirty Hamilcars would not take off for France until the evening of D-Day, setting off from Tarrant Rushton as part of what was termed Operation Mallard. The first group of fifteen Hamilcars, carrying fifteen Tetrarchs and sixty men, and which was towed by the Halifaxes of 644 Squadron, began taking-off at 19.25 hours – the last was airborne by 19.40 hours. The second batch of Hamilcars, this time transporting five tanks, sixty-two men, twelve trailers, nine Universal Carriers and sixteen motorcycles, started to get airborne at 19.35 hours. Towed by the Halifaxes of 298 Squadron, they were all airborne by 19.50 hours.4 “Before D-Day we were all penned in near Tarrant Rushton,” Corporal A. www.britainatwar.com

Darlington later recalled. “The gliders were herring boned in formation along the runway which we believed to be the longest in Britain at that time. Our loading was completed, whilst our tow ’planes, souped up Halifaxes, came later.” Darlington’s glider was at the back of the runway so that any last-minute “just in case” packages or items of equipmnent could be pushed inside. Some extra items were found and the glider was somewhat overloaded when it tried to take off. “Door closed. Brakes on. Anchors firm. Strapped in. We’re off! A gentle tug, then bump – bump from the wheels. Bump – bump – bump which speeded up as we raced down the runway. Bu – bu – bump – then silence as we became slightly airborne, then bu – bu – bump again. ‘What the hell have you got in there?’ ‘Take off or cast off!’ Then silence – we were airborne. Whether we were flying below the tug or above it we will never really know, as the sound of the wind through the glider carried on.” On the cross-Channel flight the Tetrarch crews sat behind their tanks in the gliders, looking down at the mass of shipping below. Before casting off from the Halifaxes, they got into their

LEFT: A Tetrarch successfully exits a Hamilcar glider following a trial flight and landing. The Hamilcar was constructed primarily from wood, mainly birch and spruce, with fabriccovered plywood forming the skin, and high grade steel reinforcement beams in critical areas. (COURTESY OF THE TANK MUSEUM)

LEFT: A Hamilcar glider, with its nose door open, with two troopers of the 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaisance Regiment securing their light tank prior to the D-Day operations. (COURTESY OF THE TANK MUSEUM)

 THE TETRARCH LIGHT TANK

The Light Tank Mk.VII Tetrarch was built by VickersArmstrong in the late 1930s as a fast and mobile tank for the British Army. It was capable of reaching 40mph on roads and 28mph off-road. However, when the Army decided not to use light tanks in the armoured divisions, the Tetrarch appeared to have a limited future. Nevertheless, weighing just 16,800lb, it was thought that the Tetrarch might be suitable for amphibious operations and in 1941 the Royal Armoured Corps formed three squadrons for overseas deployment. This resulted in six Tetrarchs being used in the British invasion of Madagascar in 1942. This was the only time, other than during the D-Day operations, that Tetrarchs saw action. (COURTESY OF THE TANK MUSEUM)

FEBRUARY 2014 95

BELOW: The turret on a Tetrarch is similar to that fitted to the Daimler armoured car and normally mounted a 2-pounder gun. The Tank Museum’s example is a closesupport version which carried a 3-inch howitzer. (HMP)

ABOVE and TOP RIGHT: A remarkable exhibit that can be seen at The Tank Museum at Bovington – the remains of Hamilcar glider TK718 with a Tetrarch light tank inside. This fuselage section from TK718 was recovered from a farm at Christian Malford, Wiltshire, on 29 October 1990, having been purchased from the farm’s owner. The Tank Museum’s Tetrarch was manufactured by MetropolitanCammell Ltd. in 1940. Originally a Vickers Armstrongs’ design, production was transferred to MetropolitanCammell, under contract T6423 dated 25 January 1939, to enable Vickers to concentrate on other war work. (BOTH HMP)

TOUCH DOWN “There was a certain amount of small arms fire, including tracers, coming up at us, and the field in which we landed near Ranville had got telegraph poles erected in it to hinder the landings,” recalled Sergeant Heaton when subsequently describing the landing of his glider. “We came in rather fast with our wings hitting the odd telegraph pole, which proved to be no obstruction, but just as I thought we were going too fast and would end up in an orchard at the end of the field, a Tetrarch which had just driven out of the Hamilcar landing before we did, proceeded at right angles across our landing path. “The tank commander, who was standing in his little turret, took one look, mouthed imprecations and leaped from the tank a second or two before we hit it at a speed of 90 to 100 mph. My first pilot, Charles Channell, and I jumped from our cockpit.” In the heat of the moment Heaton forgot that his flying helmet with its intercom was still plugged into its socket and that the Hamilcar cockpit was situated on top of the glider, some fifteen feet above the ground!

BURNING GLIDERS His neck wrenched by the intercom cord as he fell to the ground, Heaton recovered to examine the wrecked glider. “After looking around we found the tank upside down underneath our load, with grenades and cannon shells dropping like ripe plums from their containers into the field, and a

96 FEBRUARY 2014

strong smell of petrol. It was somewhat discouraging to see one or two gliders nearby burning fiercely as they had been mortared by the Germans. Staff Sergeant Channell and I managed to get the unfortunate tank driver and gunner out of the tank.” Corporal Darlington saw a collision between two tank-carrying Hamilcars which were heading for the same space on the landing strip. “As they tried to bank away from each other, one glider’s wing tip turned the other over and it crashed sideways into the wood and the Tetrarch shot out of the front on impact. We made a dash over and the tank was upright although it had somersaulted out of the glider. The driver ... and two others were unstrapped and dragged out. Their foreheads were bulged and purple and they were unconscious. They were strapped on the back of a passing tank’s engine compartment with camouflage nets and the remaining straps over their midriffs.”

Another of the Hamilcars was hit by mortar fire on landing and set on fire, but the tank was able to drive out successfully. Out of the twenty tanks (or possibly nineteen as one of the Tetrarchs deemed unserviceable may have been left at Tarrant Rushton) only two were lost on landing. The tank commanders’ problems, though, were far from over as the parachutes left behind on the landing zones by the men of the 5th Parachute Brigade earlier in the day littered the ground and as the tanks rolled over them they were picked up by the tracks and became tightly wrapped round the driving sprockets. No less than eleven of the tanks slewed to a halt. “The tank I ran to,” recalled Darlington, “had one wrapped round the port track and I commenced cutting, firstly with my jack knife, then with my razor sharp fighting knife, whilst the tank commander and his gunner protected me from small arms fire that started. www.britainatwar.com

THE FLYING TANKS D-Day Landings 1944

The task was made harder as not only was the canopy wrapped round the track and sprockets, but the rigging and harness as well ... Others were freeing their vehicles, until finally all that was left on LZ and LD were the wrecked gliders, parachutes scattered round and the odd bursts of small arms firing.” Now the tanks had to join up with the rest of 6th AARR and Parkerforce. However, the situation was rapidly evolving and with severe losses experienced by the parachute units due to large numbers having become widely dispersed and strong counterattacks already being mounted by the Germans, it was simply impracticable to take Parkerforce, with its invaluable tanks, away from the main divisional group. At 03.00 hours on 7 June, Parkerforce was disbanded. “I judged the situation to be such that I would not be justified in sending this force out,” conceded Gale. “It would

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have been very interesting to have seen what it would have achieved in those first few days had the situation been more propitious. In view of our later experiences I believe, that once established in one of these villages [south of the perimeter] it might have held its ground and paid a handsome dividend.”

TETRARCH SET ON FIRE The tanks were now to help block any counter-attack by the Germans, as Corporal Sheffield described: “We moved out in the morning [of the 7th], passing quite a few of our knocked out anti-tank guns. We took up positions near a crossroads, a few miles from Ranville. Down one road, leading off from the crossroads, were German infantry in positions on the roadside. Our troop was detailed to do something about this so Sergeant Knowles, in the leading tank, troop leader and myself

in the rear, went like hell, machine guns roaring. But alas, the driver in the leading tank got knocked out somehow, blocking the road. It was very narrow so the troop leader and I reversed out round a corner back to the crossroads. On inspection we had a bit of paint missing and bullet holes in the tool boxes.” Shortly after Sheffield’s tank returned to the crossroads the troop was called into action as a German self-propelled gun had started to attack the 6th Airborne Division’s infantry. “Once again our troop (now only two tanks) was detailed to see what we could do. My tank leading, we moved off down another road when, coming to a bend, we came across this SP gun. My gunner fired, at the same time the SP fired and it hit us hard just in front of the turret, setting us on fire, jamming the turret and twisting the machine gun. I was blinded at the time, my right hand 

ABOVE: A diagram showing the extent of the section of a Hamilcar glider (shaded) preserved by The Tank Museum. For more information on this exhibit, or to arrange a visit, please see: www. tankmuseum.org

(COURTESY OF THE TANK MUSEUM)

BELOW: Men of the 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaisance Regiment unloading their Tetrarch light tank from a Hamilcar glider at RAF Tarrant Rushton. (COURTESY OF THE TANK MUSEUM)

FEBRUARY 2014 97

THE FLYING TANKS D-Day Landings 1944 RIGHT & BELOW RIGHT: Two pictures showing some of the detail of The Tank Museum’s Hamilcar glider section. (BOTH

HMP)

TOP RIGHT: Another view of the remains of Hamilcar TK718 at The Tank Museum. A significant proportion of the fuselage of Hamilcar TK777 is also preserved at the Museum of Army Flying in Hampshire. (HMP) BELOW: Aircraft prepared for the reinforcement of the British airborne assault, assembled at RAF Tarrant Rushton, Hampshire, on the afternoon of 6 June 1944. On the runway are General Aircraft Hamilcar heavy lift gliders, preceded by two Airspeed Horsa troop-carrying gliders, while parked on each side of them are Handley Page Halifax glider-tugs of Nos. 298 and 644 Squadrons. (IMPERIAL WAR

MUSEUM; CL26)

98 FEBRUARY 2014

and shoulder were useless, and my face burnt. Somehow with my left hand I released two smoke rounds, ordered the driver to turn about and withdraw. The SP gun did not fire again.” Corporal Sheffield was very fortunate as the self-propelled gun was likely to have been either an 88mm or 105mm weapon, more than twice the calibre of the Tetrarch’s little 2-pounder (40mm) gun.

THE EYES AND EARS OF THE ARMY Just how effective these little tanks could be is demonstrated by this description given by Sergeant Charles Elsey: “Our first big punch-up came on the second day, when we were moving to another position. There were four Germans in a ditch with machine guns. I was the only one who saw them – nasty buggers – and they were shooting

at us; even through the armour you could feel it. Now killing from a tank involves team-work. I said to Ted, the driver, ‘There’s some on the left, turn left, go towards them – left, left, left!’ Then, to the gunner, Bill, ‘Traverse left, left, there’s some jerries in a ditch, left, left, see them?’ ‘Yes, I’ve got them,’ said Bill. ‘Fire, fire,’ I said. ‘Go left Ted, towards them. You’re hitting them Bill, you’ve got them. Drive over the ditch, Ted.’ It was always like this, a combined operation – A driver to get you there, a gunner to fire, and a commander to find the target and say when to open up on it.” Two Tetrarchs were lost on 7 June, one in an encounter with a German armoured car, the other to a mine. From this point onwards, with the beach-heads firmly established, what remained of the 6th AARR reverted to its original role of reconnaissance and

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“My gunner fired, at the same time the SP fired and it hit us hard just in front of the turret, setting us on fire, jamming the turret and twisting the machine gun.” Hamilcar gliders of 6th Airlanding Brigade arrive on Drop Zone ‘N’ near Ranville, bringing with them the Tetrarch tanks of 6th Airborne Division’s Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment, 6 June 1944. (IMPERIAL WAR

MUSEUM; B5198)

fire-support when the infantry came across an enemy strong post. “It had provided valuable information for the divisional commander, acting as his eyes and ears in the forward areas. As well as using ‘B’ Squadron’s Bren carriers and Dingo scout cars, the regiment deployed patrols mounted on bicycles deep into enemy held areas. These obtained information on enemy dispositions, including vehicle parks and armour FUPs [forming up point], which resulted in successful air strikes and bombardments by the cruiser HMS Mauritius.” After ten days ‘A’ Squadron was withdrawn from front line action, but was recalled almost immediately to provide fire support to the hard-pressed airborne infantry of the 5th Parachute Brigade, often being dug-in performing an artillery role. The 6th AARR was then almost constantly on the move and in action and on one occasion involved an unusual duty, as Sergeant Elsey explained.

This was on 7 July, the day German strongpoints to the north of Caen were attacked by more than 400 bombers: “The Colonel asked me [to] take out two tanks to protect the war correspondent Chester Wilmot, and his BBC wagon ... The Colonel told us to find a place where Chester Wilmot could see what was going to happen. So we prowled about and found a nice little hillock which gave us a good view towards Caen, no more than two miles away. It was an awesome sight – the bombers came over and the sky was black with them. Chester Wilmot was doing his recording, and I sat next to him.” It was in August, that 6th AARR was re-equipped with Cromwell tanks. On 1 August two officers and forty-three men had been detached from the regiment to receive instruction on the new tanks and the new Cromwells were taken on by ‘A’ Squadron, formed into two troops. Three Tetrarchs were retained by Squadron HQ and two in Regimental HQ.

Despite their inferiority in comparision to the German tanks, the Tetrarchs had a significant impact in the first couple of days of the operations in Normandy. The 21st Panzer Division, which was ordered north from Caen when the landings began in order to drive a wedge into the Allied troops and reach the coast, was recalled when it was reported that tanks had been dropped in its rear. “Thus, magnified by rumour,” wrote the historian David Fletcher, “the tiny Tetrarchs had an effect on Rommel’s crack panzer division out of all proportion to their size or numbers.”5 

NOTES

T.B. Otway, The Second World War 1939-1945 Army, Airborne Forces (Imperial War Museum Department of Printed Books, London, 1990), p.434. 2. These instructions are detailed in Keith Flint’s Airborne Armour, Tetrarch, Locust, Hamilcar and the 6th Airborne Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment 1938-50, which is published by Helion Books of Solihull. 3. Alan Wood, The Glider Soldiers (Spellmount, Tunbridge Wells, 1992), pp.252-2. 4. Ibid, pp.276-7. 5. David Fletcher, “The Flying Tank”, Military Illustrated magazine, September 1996.

ABOVE: Taken from 800 feet this aerial photograph shows part of Landing Zone ‘N’, north of Ranville, on D+1. Horsa troop-carrying gliders and one damaged Hamilcar tankcarrying glider (arrowed lower right) litter this part of the LZ close to the RanvilleSalanelles road.

(HMP)

1.

www.britainatwar.com

LEFT: General Bernard Montgomery inspects a Tetrarch light tank, loaded inside a Hamilcar glider, prior to Operation Mallard. (COURTESY OF THE TANK MUSEUM)

FEBRUARY 2014 99

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

THIS IS a fine collection of personal accounts from the opening year of the First World War, a good number of which have not been published before. What makes this book particularly interesting is the number of German accounts which are included. Amongst these is the description given by the German novelist Walter Bleom, of the 6th Brandenburg Regiment’s attack against the 1st Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment at St. Ghislain at the Battle of Mons: “And so we went on, gradually working forwards by rushes of a hundred, later fifty, and then about thirty yards towards the invisible enemy. At every rush a few more fell, but one could do nothing for them. On and on, that was the only solution. Easier said than done, however, for not only was the meadow horribly swampy, filling our boots with water, but it was intersected by broad, water-logged drains and barbed wire fences that had to be cut through ... Behind us the whole meadow was dotted with little grey heaps. The hundred and sixty men that had left the wood with me had shrunk to less than a hundred.” As the book concentrates on just 1914, the engagements of those first four months of the war are covered in considerable detail. This includes the rearguard action at Elouges (see page 28) during the retreat from Mons as seen through the eyes of a corporal of the 9th Lancers, when the 2nd Cavalry Brigade charged the German artillery: “We rode absolutely into death, and the colonel told us

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that onlookers never expected a single lancer to come back ... You see, the infantry of ours were in a fix and no guns but four could be got round, so the General ordered two squadrons of the 9th to charge, as a sacrifice, to save the position ... It was magnificent, but horrible. The regiment was swept away before 1,000 yards was covered, and at 200 yards from the guns I was practically alone – myself, three privates, and an officer of our squadron. We wheeled to a flank on the colonel’s signal and rode back. I was mad with rage, a feeling I cannot describe. But we had drawn their fire; the infantry were saved.” The confusion of the retreat from Mons is exemplified by the infamous events at St. Quentin where the mayor asked the British troops to fight outside the town because he did not want his beautiful town destroyed by the fighting. The men refused, saying that they could not leave St. Quentin: “We have lost nearly all our officers, our Staff have gone away by train, we do not know where to. Also, we have no artillery, most of us have neither rifles nor ammunition.” As a result the men were bullied into surrendering by the Marie even though there were no Germans for miles. The arrival of a group of British cavalry officers soon resolved the situation. It has often been recognised that the officers and men of the British Army regard each other with respect. This was most certainly not the case in the German Army of the early twentieth century and the differences were explained

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by a British officer who had also served in the German Army. One of the reasons for this, Captain Thomas Burke wrote, was the Germans were “not like the British Tommy, professional soldiers, but are birds of passage, serving only two or three years, and longing to be free ... The German officer is not, as are the British and French officers, the confidants of their men. As I have explained, the men are but birds of passage, and it may be that they hardly have the chance to get acquainted with one another. Certainly, the officers in my experience gave their men no encouragement in this direction ... [the German soldier] is simply something which must be turned and knocked into shape ... The English non-com is often a father to his regiment, but there is nothing of the father about his German cousin, except that he calls his men ‘my children’ and thrashes them.” That pride in the regiment and the strong bond between officers and men that has existed since the days of the sword and musket, is still the backbone of the British Army today. First-hand accounts are always of great value, more so usually than the interpretations of historians. In 1914 Voices from the Battlefields the author has thankfully refrained from adding little more than a few lines to provide context and continuity. This is certainly a book I will dip into time and time again. REVIEWED BY JOHN GREHAN.

BOOK OF THE MONTH

1914

Voices From The Battlefields Matthew Richardson

Publisher: Pen & Sword www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-848-84777-4 Hardback. 296 pages RRP: £25.00 Illustrations  References/Notes Appendices  Index 



FEBRUARY 2014 101

RECONNAISSANCE REPORT |

The Britain at War team scout out the latest items of interest HUNDRED DAYS

TO WAR IN A SPITFIRE

The End of the Great War

The Diary of an American Spitfire Pilot Lieutenant Colonel H.C. Strawn DFC

Nick Lloyd

Mark Hillier, Dieter Sinanan, and Gregory Percival



LIEUTENANT HARRY

Strawn from Swissvale,

Pennsylvania, was a pilot with the

309th Squadron of the 31st Fighter

this book.

answered in this book in the usual Haynes Manual style, providing a vivid insight into life for the average British soldier. As is to be expected, this book

extraordinary final

is packed with photographs, mostly in

days of the First World War. Beginning

colour, of original weapons, insignia and

at the turning-point on the Marne in July

equipment, supplemented by numerous

1918, Hundred Days traces the epic

contemporary diagrams and drawings. Publisher: Haynes; www.haynes.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-85733-241-7 Hardback. 156 pages RRP: £21.99

the war. Using archive material from five

a diary which forms the basis of

These and many other questions are

author explores the

included some of the bloodiest battles of

Throughout the war he maintained

look like? How did you dig a trench?

 IN THIS book the

story of the next four months, which

Group, which he joined in 1942.

were puttees? What does a gas mask

countries, some of which is previously unpublished, this new account reveals

D-DAY TO BERLIN

Strawn observed that “the Germans

how Allied troops – British, French, US

Kingdom in June 1942 to a typical British

are plenty good and have a good

and Commonwealth – beat the German

summer: “The weather is terrible today,

fighter plane in the Fw 190 ... You

Army, by now crippled by indiscipline

cold and raining ... I have a beautiful

have to keep your eyes open all the

and ravaged by influenza, and forced

 D-Day to Berlin: The

cold now and this weather isn’t helping

time and looking around, for in most

Long March to Victory

me much ... In fact I really want to get

cases they come down on you from

some warm clothes. This cold weather

above and out of the sun.”

her leaders to seek peace. Publisher: Viking; www.penguin.com ISBN: 978-0-670-92006-8 Hardback. 350 pages RRP: £25.00

Strawn’s unit arrived in the United

will put us all in bed ... No heat in the

Regardless of his appreciation of the

stove as they are short on coal in this

enemy, Strawn went on to conclude

country.” Welcome to the realities of

that, “We have a good ’plane to meet

wartime Britain.

them with in the Spitfire, and one the

The Americans clearly had little

British should be very proud of. For

appreciation of what had happened in

myself I hope I never have to fly any

the first year or two of the war. “Spent

other make.”

most of the evening talking with my bat

Soon Strawn was able to say goodbye

CODE NAME PAULINE Memoirs of a World War II Special Agent

The Long March to Victory David Edwards

is a most interesting retelling of the invasion of Europe in the Second World War. From 6 June 1944, when hundreds of thousands of Allied troops came ashore on five Normandy beaches, to 8 May

Pearl Witherington Cornioley

1945, the day of the German surrender,

 PEARL

events are described in this book as

VE Day, these dramatic and historic

boy about the battle of England [sic].

to the British climate as his squadron

WITHERINGTON

they happened and as they were told

They really are funny chaps. I guess

was posted to North Africa. He remained

became one of the

through the pages of The Daily Mirror.

England was just about gone if Hitler

in North Africa until he was posted to

most celebrated

This is done both through photographs

could have held out a little longer.”

an advanced flying school in Texas in

female Resistance

and with reproductions of the newspaper

late 1943. He was reassigned to combat

fighters of the

Americans. When he was given what

operations in the Pacific, where he saw

Second World

was, presumably, kippers for breakfast

out the rest of the war.

War. In Code

articles written at the time. Publisher: Haynes; www.haynes.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-85733-210-3 Hardback. 208 pages RRP: £25.00

The food was also a surprise to the

he could scarcely believe it. “Tried to

Name Pauline she

As well as his diary entries and

feed me fish for breakfast of all things,”

some letters home, To War in a Spitfire

describes her escape from France in

he complained.

includes excerpts from interviews that

1940; her recruitment and training as a

Harry Strawn gave after the war. These

special agent; the logistics and dangers

strange country he was now in, Strawn

tend to describe his combat experiences

of posing as a cosmetics saleswoman

was enamoured with both the British

in considerably more graphic terms, and

to make her way around the country as

girls and the Spitfires that his squadron

make good reading.

an undercover courier; and both failed

Despite the peculiar ways of the

was issued with. After familiarisation

and successful attempts at sabotage.

This book is well furnished with

with their aircraft the 309th Squadron

photographs, and is full of interesting

She tells how, when the leader of her

was posted to RAF Westhampnett on

and amusing anecdotes.

network was caught by the Gestapo, she

1 August 1942. Less than three weeks

REVIEWED BY ALEXANDER NICOLL.

rose to command a 3,500-strong band

later Strawn was thrown into what was the largest air engagement since the Battle of Britain – the fighting in support of the Dieppe raid. More than sixty Spitfires were destroyed that day, with the 309th Squadron losing three aircraft. Strawn noted in his diary that “My mission turned out very good as we were not attacked by anything”. Further experience was gained on the 20th of the month, with Strawn flying on Circus 207. It was still summer in Britain, though, which meant that the weather was entirely unsuitable for flying. When it did actually stop raining and the squadron was able to engage the enemy,

102 FEBRUARY 2014

Published by Yellowman and priced at £20.00 (Hardback, 150 pages), copies of To War in a Spitfire are available from the Aviation Bookshop (www. aviation-bookshop.com), Kim’s

Bookshop (www.kimsbookshop.

of French Resistance fighters. Publisher: Chicago Review Press; www.chicagoreviewpress.com ISBN: 978-1-61374-487-1 Hardback. 184 pages RRP: £12.05

GREAT WAR TOMMY

co.uk), outlets such as Goodwood

Shop and Tangmere Aviation Museum shop, or direct from the authors (please

The British Soldier 1914-18 (All Models)

IN THE MIND’S EYE The Blinded Veterans of St Dunstan’s

David Castleton

 SINCE 1915 St Dunstan’s (now Blind Veterans UK) has helped thousands of war-blinded men and women to re-join society and live their lives to the full. This book draws on the St Dunstan’s archive and many previously untold stories of the people, both blind and sighted, involved in the charity during the two world wars. These include Tommy Milligan, who lost his sight just

Peter Doyle

months after enlisting on his eighteenth

 THERE IS a

hands and sight in a North African mine-

All proceeds from the sale of the

growing interest

field, yet found hope and a wife at St

book will support a flying scholarship

in the uniforms

for ATC cadets.

and equipment of

Dunstan’s. Publisher: Pen & Sword; www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-78159-347-7 Hardback. 175 pages RRP: £19.99

contact Gregory Percival by email at: [email protected]).

Illustrations  Appendices 

References/Notes Index 



the British soldier of the First World War. What was it like to wear? What

birthday, and David Bell, who lost his

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The Britain at War team scout out the latest items of interest

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ARCTIC WARRIORS

THE GREAT WAR FROM THE AIR

A Personal Account of Convoy PQ18 Alfred Grossmith Mason

by the United Kingdom during the war, although most of the class only entered service from 1944 onwards. A total of

 NOTABLE FOR

110 vessels were planned, but by the

being the first of the

end of the war only twenty-eight had

Russian convoys to sail

been completed. This definitive book

supported by an escort

records the design, service record and

Then And Now

carrier, the ships of

Gail Ramsey

for Arkhangelsk on

fate of these vessels. Publisher: Maritime Books; www.navybooks.com ISBN: 978-1-904-45954-5 Hardback. 248 pages RRP: £25.00

Convoy PQ18 sailed 29 September 1942. Amongst the forty merchant vessels was the SS Empire Baffin, a 6,978 ton cargo



ship. Its Navigation/Gunnery Officer was

NO MATTER how hard we may try to picture in our minds the devastation wrought by years of almost continual bombardment, actual photographs still have the power to surprise, even shock, us. This book demonstrates that so vividly. There was an area of France, roughly ten miles wide, which took years to clear of all the war material and turn it back into productive use. There was another area, some seven to eight miles deep, where the devastation was so complete that every building had been ground into dust, and the actual earth itself had been so mixed with the substrate that restitution would be a long and costly job. Some people even argued that the ground was so heavily contaminated that there was no point in trying to bring it back into use and that it should simply be abandoned to nature. This area covered nearly 50,000 acres.

enable the reader to place the photos

the author of this book who, at the age

accurately on the ground, trench maps

of 31, compiled a diary detailing the

are also included.

dramas and disasters that befell PQ18,

George B. Ford, an American town

images of forts, such as the Fort de

The author quotes the words of

planner who travelled around the Western Front soon after the end of the war: “So stupendous is the destruction in the devastated regions of France that no-one can begin to realise what it means. It is only by travelling day after day in an automobile through village after village and town after town, often where nothing is standing erect more than a few feet above the ground, that one can begin to have any conception of its enormousness.” This book shows some of these

Amongst the comparative images are those of Zillebeke in Belgium and the

was ultimately considered a success.

quite unbelievable image of the Bois de

Unlike many involved, the author finally

Malancourt west of Verdun where the

returned to Britain in December 1942. Publisher: Pen & Sword; www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-78303-037-8 Hardback. 214 pages RRP: £19.99

French 69ème Regiment d’Infanterie was annihilated in March and April of 1916. The US 79th Division also fought there in September 1918. Almost every feature of the ground had been obliterated. Whilst in some parts the areas have been completely restored and rebuilt and look nothing like the wartime images, in others features can still be seen. An example is the Crȇte des Eparges, a dominating ridge of high ground six miles south-east of Verdun. Here mines were detonated in April 1915, and today the craters are still

‘Then and Now’ images are always fascinating and when it is with regard to devastation on this scale they are even more intriguing. What makes this collection of photographs particularly interesting is that most of the comparative images are aerial ones. To

covered include: Bailleul, Hill 60, Loosen-Gohelle, Serre, Beaumont Hamel, Bapaume, Delville Wood, Fromelles, and many more. There are also comparative Douamont and Fort de Vaux. With the maps available for comparison with the present-day photographs and the exact area on the period photograph also clearly marked, it is easy to identify the exact points under discussion. This makes it easy for individuals visiting the Western Front to locate every place featured in the book and should, therefore be in every visitor’s hand when they make their

www.britainatwar.com

Publisher: Battle of Britain International; www.afterthebattle.com ISBN: 978-1-870-06781-2 Hardback. 128 pages RRP: £19.95

to move the 5th Division north of the BEF’s area in order to plug a growing gap in his Army’s eastern defences. Over the next three days the division fought a little-known engagement, the Battle of the Ypres-Comines Canal, to hold the Germans at bay while the rest of the BEF retreated towards Dunkirk. Using British and German sources, this new light on other aspects such as the

sizeable and detailed

impact of the Luftwaffe and the Dunkirk

publication range

evacuation itself. Publisher: Frontline Books; www.frontline-books.com ISBN: 978-1-84832-733-7 Hardback. 252 pages RRP: £25.00

the medical services and chaplains. An introduction explaining why the world went to war is followed by events and battles and then sections on all branches of the armies. Information boxes throughout cover further aspects,

24HR UNDER ATTACK Tommy Defends The Frontline Andrew Robertshaw

from Victoria Cross actions to the daily

 THIS BOOK relives

routine in the trenches. It is, as the

twenty-four hours of a

subtitle suggests, a complete guide

unit of British infantry

to the events of 1914 to 1918 on the

under attack, using an

Western Front. Publisher: Aurum; www.aurumpress.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-84513-710-6 Hardback. 528 pages RRP: £60.00

actual battalion War Diary from 8/9 April 1918, as a guide to follow the German assault hour by hour. The unit in question was No.3 Section, 15 Platoon, ‘D’ Company, 1/5th King’s. A team of historians, re-enactors and archaeologists reconstruct the fighting, providing an insight into

 IN 1940 and 1941 the war in the

how the British soldier defended his

Atlantic seemed to be being won by the

hard-won positions. This is accomplished

German U-boats. Plans were therefore

by using a large collection of images,

drawn up for a new

many of which are in colour, taken in a

frigate programme.

replica trench system.

The resulting Loch-

Publisher: Spellmount; www.thehistorypress.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-7524-8869-1 Hardback. 224 pages RRP: £19.99

class was to prove



 ON 25 May 1940, Lord Gort, the British commander, took the decision

fresh look at the campaign also casts

Patrick Boniface

REVIEWED BY ROBERT MITCHELL.

Charles More

words of text in this

LOCH CLASS FRIGATES

pilgrimage to the hallowed lands.

The British Expeditionary Force and the Battle of the Ypres-Comines Canal, 1940

 THE 350,000

a year-by-year enumeration of the critical

St Eloi, Zonnebeke, Polygon Wood,

References/Notes Index 

The Complete Guide to How Armies Fought for Four Devastating Years, 1914-1918

railways at the front to

Gail Ramsey’s book does not just show battlefields, though the locations

Illustrations  Appendices 

THE WESTERN FRONT COMPANION

over everything from

clearly visible from the air.

devastated areas in juxtaposition with present-day photographs. Such

which, despite the loss of thirteen ships,

THE ROAD TO DUNKIRK

to be amongst the best anti-submarine frigates produced

FEBRUARY 2014 103

RECONNAISSANCE REPORT |

The Britain at War team scout out the latest items of interest

MARCH 2014 ISSUE

FIRST WORLD WAR An Illustrated History

ON SALE FROM 27 FEBRUARY 2014



THERE HAD never been such an outpouring of national pride, of unqualified patriotism. Every level of society embraced the cause and offered up its sons and husbands. That cause was war. Germany had to be stopped.

THE DYING COMRADE

Private Percy Buck was killed at the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917. Months after he had been listed as missing in action, his family received a photograph of Percy accompanied by a letter from a soldier who had found the photograph in the hands of “a dying comrade”. That soldier was, writes

Few could ever have imagined the

Dan Hill, a German corporal.

consequences of the decision to declare

 OPERATION EXODUS

war on Germany. A great clash of armies

By April 1945 increasing numbers of Prisoner of War camps in Occupied

was expected with one conclusive battle to decide the fate of Europe; no-one

for which the First World War has

Europe or Germany were being liberated. Though free, the former PoWs were

anticipated four years of global warfare

become synonymous. From these

usually hundreds of miles from home; many were suffering from disease,

that would cost the lives of millions of

Kitchener’s New Army went “over the

fatigue and starvation. As they began to arrive at collection points throughout

soldiers and civilians. It changed the

top” to destruction during the Battle

the Continent, it was clear that a swift method of repatriation was needed.

world forever.

of the Somme and found themselves

Consequently, Allied aircraft were tasked to fly the PoWs home. Operation

waterlogged at Ypres where the men

Exodus was underway.

It seems hard to equate all this with the shooting of an Austrian Archduke

were up to their necks in “muck and

in a city more than 1,200 miles away

bullets”. Such were the conditions the

in a city scarcely heard of in Britain. Yet

soldiers often had to live and fight in,

within weeks Britain and its Empire was

the men found expression in some of

at war.

the most graphic poems ever penned.

If the rush to arms of the young men

Others, just a few, whose minds could

of Britain was unprecedented, it was

no longer take the terror, were branded

matched by those in Australia and New

cowards and were shot at dawn.

Zealand and Canada. From across the

From the rugged heights upon

Empire thousands responded to the call

which the British and Anzacs died at

to arms. Soon the women too would take

Gallipoli to the vast deserts traversed

their place in the hospitals at home and

by Lawrence; from the humanity of

abroad; in the factories and the fields.

the Christmas Truce to the humility of

As well as inducing social change, the war drove innovation. Aircraft filled the skies, super-dreadnaughts menaced the oceans, tanks rumbled across the fields; gas drifted over the trenches. It was those trenches, that stretched across northern France and Belgium,

THE MAN WHO DIDN’T SHOOT HITLER

The Story of Henry Tandey VC and Adolf Hitler, 1918

the Treaty of Versailles, The First World War, An Illustrated History tells it all. To order your copy, please visit:

www.keypublishing.com/shop Are

you a Key magazine subscriber? If so, call 01780 480404 to claim your £1 special discount.

PRIVATE LORD CRAWFORD’S GREAT WAR DIARIES

A SIGN OF THE TIMES

At 01.00 hours on the morning of Wednesday, 10 May 1916, a patrol led by Lieutenant F.J. Biggane of the 8th (Service) Battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers,

From Medical Orderly to Cabinet Minister

crept over the parapet of the British front line trenches near Hulluch in France

 HENRY TANDEY VC was the most

Christopher Arnander (Ed.)

that the Germans had erected

decorated British private to survive the

 THIS DIARY was written

First World War. Adolf Hitler also served

by the 27th Earl of Crawford

and survived that conflict and, according

and Balcarres, who was an

to Hitler, their paths crossed in 1918. It

eminent MP for eighteen

was in 1938 that Hitler named Tandey

years until the death of his

as the soldier who spared his life in the

father in 1913 when he was ennobled. His

aftermath of the Battle of Marcoing in

sense of duty drove him to join the RAMC

Reichmarschall Hermann

September 1918. This book tells the

as a Private (a commission would have

Göring saw Allied bombers

story of both men’s war, the

been easily provided) and he served in a

over Berlin being escorted

moment when their lives

humble capacity in field hospitals in France

by North American P-51

became intertwined, whether

without revealing his identity. His diaries

Mustang fighters, he

Hitler told the truth about the

and letters reflect the stark contrast

declared that he knew the

battle, and how Henry lived

between his privileged home life and the

war was lost. The Mustangs

with the stigma of being the

one he volunteered for, throwing new light

were only able to fly into

on what it meant to be a junior rank. Publisher: Pen & Sword; www.pen-and-sword.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-78159-367-7 Hardback. 206 pages RRP: £19.99

the heart of Germany, and

David Johnson

man who let Hitler live. Publisher: The History Press; www.thehistorypress.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-7509-5362-7 Paperback. 188 pages RRP: £9.99

104 FEBRUARY 2014

and headed out into No Man’s Land. Its mission was to seize a pair of placards on their side of the battlefield!

 EVERY PROBLEM HAS A SOLUTION Reputedly, when

seal the fate of the Third Reich, thanks to pieces of cardboard. John Lane explains.

www.britainatwar.com

EPIC OF THE RESISTANCE Major Desmond Longe When a French uprising was crushed in the summer of 1944 a British liaison officer was forced to make an epic escape across the Alps. Steve Snelling charts the story of the ill-fated SOE Eucalyptus Mission and one man’s fight to clear his name.

EPIC OF THE

MAIN PICTURE: The craggy face of the Vercors Plateau, a natural limestone fortress regarded as a “national redoubt” for France’s growing resistance movement. The high plateau provided the ideal terrain for a gathering point and training area for the Maquis. The clandestine army was mobilised on 7 June 1944, transforming the Vercors into the first area of Free France, with tricolours flying in all its towns and villages even though they were surrounded by Germans on the plains below. (SHUTTERSTOCK)

S

IGNAL LIGHTS pricked the darkness of the mountain plateau as the four parachutists drifted earthwards. The bitterly cold Alpine air came as something of a shock to Major Desmond Longe, but not half as much as the landing. The 6ft 4in tall leader of the quartet, clad in an ill-fitting harness and a helmet that was several sizes too big for him, knew he was in trouble almost as soon as he dropped from the Halifax. The ground was rushing up fast – too fast – and his ’chute seemed to have developed a worryingly heavy swing. All his efforts to regain control were in vain. There was barely time to brace himself for the impending impact. “Before I knew any more, I crash backwards to earth,” Longe later wrote. “First my heels and then the back of my head hit mother earth violently. I see a multitude of stars and remained stunned for a moment.”1 Longe was still nursing a sore head, with a mouth full of shattered teeth and

106 FEBRUARY 2014

a neck that felt as though it was broken, when he and the rest of the party were hustled into a car and driven off shortly before dawn. They had not gone far, however, when the driver, distracted by his passengers, missed a turn and drove straight into a ditch, rolling the car on its roof. Shaken and bruised, but otherwise uninjured, Longe and the rest of his hapless team managed to scramble out through the car’s splintered windows to complete an eventful journey on foot. “I really thought we had had about enough for one night,” complained Longe, little realising that his uncomfortable arrival on the Vercors Plateau in south-east France was merely an augury of far worse to come.  

CODE-NAMED EUCALYPTUS  At 29, Longe was an unlikely candidate to head up the Inter-Allied Mission sent to assist the thousands of patriotic French men and women who had rallied to the cause and taken up arms in

the foothills of the Alps near Grenoble. Not only was his command of French poor, even by his own estimation, but he had an irrational fear of heights which hardly leant itself to mountain warfare. However, what he lacked in practical ability, he more than made up for in guts and determination. A pre-war banker and parson’s son from a prominent Norfolk landowning family, he was an early convert to the Special Operations Executive. Among his more audacious exploits was his participation in Operation Postmaster, a daring mission to hijack enemy merchant ships in the neutral port of Fernando Po. Posted back to Britain in 1944, he volunteered for a mission in France and secured command of a liaison team bound for the Resistance stronghold at Vercors. Accompanying him were two radio officers, a French army officer, Second Lieutenant Croix, and an American of French extraction, Lieutenant André Pecquet (cover name www.britainatwar.com

RESISTANCE Paray) who would act as his interpreter. Longe’s close friend and fellow Royal Norfolk Regiment officer, Captain John Houseman, was appointed second in command. The small force was further bolstered by the addition of an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) party consisting of eleven American paratroopers and four French Canadians led by 1st Lieutenant Vernon Hoppers. Their mission, code-named Eucalyptus, was planned to co-ordinate operations carried out by French Resistance forces in the wake of the Allied landings in Normandy. As leader of the team, Longe was tasked with providing a direct radio link between the commander of the Vercors maquisards, Colonel Francois Huet, and Allied headquarters in Algiers and London. His objectives were to advise on potential landing grounds for airborne reinforcements, organise limited supply drops, help train the Resistance fighters and to discourage expansion of the “secret” army for fear of provoking German reprisals. 

www.britainatwar.com

LEFT: Major Desmond Evelyn Longe (19141990). The youngest son of the Rev. John Charles Longe, he served as a territorial in the County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) between 1936 and 1938. He was working in Jamaica with Barclays Bank when war broke out and returned to the UK to enlist as a private soldier in the Royal Norfolk Regiment. Commissioned in November 1940, he joined the SOE as chief instructor of Special Training School No.3 (Stodham Park, Hampshire). He later described his six months in the ranks on airfield and coastal defence duties as “an experience I would swop with no one”. (ALL IMAGES

COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

FEBRUARY 2014 107

EPIC OF THE RESISTANCE Major Desmond Longe

 AN IDEAL TEAM

SOE team and close friends Desmond Longe (on the right) and John Houseman – the leader and deputy leader of the Inter-Allied Eucalyptus Mission sent to the Vercors. They had met at an Officer Cadet Training Unit in 1940 and were both commissioned into the Royal Norfolk Regiment. Bored with soldiering in the UK, they volunteered for the SOE and were appointed to its training staff, Longe instructing Danes and Norwegians and Houseman Poles. Houseman, a pre-war estate agent, later served in the Middle East before teaming up with Longe again in 1944 for a “blind drop” into Hungary. When that mission was cancelled, they both readily accepted the opportunity to form a liaison party with the Maquis. Longe regarded Houseman as an ideal deputy. “He was forever cheerful and willing to try anything once and was a very placid individual,” he wrote. “A perfect counter party to myself, being tall, thin and quick tempered.”

Unfortunately, delays in sending the liaison team meant that by the time they arrived on the plateau on 25 June 1944, circumstances had changed and it was already too late to influence a tragic course of events.  

“AT ALL COSTS” Where Longe expected to find a headquarters of the Maquis, he found instead the control centre of a selfproclaimed republic, complete with its own president, courts administering its own system of rough justice and a 5,000-strong army manning defences that barred all routes onto the plateau. Prompted by General de Gaulle’s rallying call and inspired by news of the Allied invasion, the people of the Vercors had effectively liberated themselves. Tricolours flew above towns and villages in a deliberate act

of defiance against the German forces of occupation on the plains below. The lightly-armed maquisards believed Longe’s party was merely the vanguard of a major airlift of reinforcements timed to coincide with an Allied invasion of southern France. The widely diverging expectations were evidenced in the mutual surprise shared by the Resistance, who were bemused to discover that Longe knew nothing about either airborne support or an impending invasion, and Longe, who was both surprised and appalled to discover that the Resistance had already mobilised and was determined to “hold the Vercors plateau at all costs”. Presented with a fait accompli, Longe, despite all his misgivings, had no alternative but to go along with things. “We could not undo what had already been done,” he wrote, “and the only hope was to build up our defences as hard as possible”.  

“BOMBED AND STRAFED” As Longe feared, it proved to be the calm before the storm with the Germans determined to wipe out the Vercors enclave. Long days, with seldom more than four hours’ sleep, were spent compiling and sending intelligence reports, both on the Resistance force’s preparedness and the enemy’s strength and dispositions, organising supply drops, touring the plateau’s defences and planning acts of sabotage. All of this took place against a backdrop of intensifying German air activity which made movement increasingly dangerous. “Hun planes

ABOVE RIGHT: Desmond and Isla Longe on their wedding day, 29 February 1944. They had met in Jamaica shortly before the outbreak of war. During a four-year engagement, they had met only once, in Canada, following SOE’s Operation Postmaster. After his West African exploit, Longe had been posted to India as a staff officer in 1943, but returned in early 1944, having been promised an active role in operations behind enemy lines in readiness for the invasion of France. BELOW: Another view of the imposing terrain of the Vercors Plateau.

108 FEBRUARY 2014

www.britainatwar.com

were over us daily,” wrote Longe, “sometimes just on reconnaissance missions and sometimes they would give us a squirt with their machine guns”. As June gave way to July, the struggle for the Vercors continued. A German convoy was ambushed, with assistance from Longe’s American paratroopers, whilst the mountain stronghold echoed to the sound of aerial bombardment. With the threat from the Germans growing, work was speeded up on preparing a landing strip at Vassieux. Sadly, it was to prove too little, too late. As Longe noted, “it was enemy, not Allied ’planes that were to make use of the fruits of our labours”. Before the German assault, however, there was the softening-up process. On 14 July 1944, Bastille Day, the joy of seeing a mass daylight supply drop by British-based USAAF bombers was followed an hour later by the despair of a vengeful aerial assault on Vassieux. “They bombed and strafed us all day,” wrote Longe. “Vassieux was razed to the ground and La Chapelle burned for 36 hours. Many civilians … were killed and wounded and much of our transport, waiting to remove the newly-arrived containers, was destroyed. “As the fighter[s] and fighter-bombers came onto us at St Martin, it was a very difficult job for us to try to get the civilians to disperse. Instead, they stood scared stiff in their hundreds in doorways, making lovely targets for the guns of fighters.” Battle was well and truly joined with Longe reduced to the role of frustrated observer, able to do little but chart the course of a tragedy he was powerless to prevent. His diary entry for 15 July states: “Air attacks continued with first light and our HQ was hit twice by MG fire and a near miss by a bomb … We are all very, very tired through lack of sleep … Very strong forces are on the move North and South of Grenoble. Looks like we are in for it.” www.britainatwar.com

TOP LEFT: Members of the Maquis undergoing training on the Vercors plateau before the German assault. Once mobilised in the wake of the D-Day landings, their orders were to hold the ‘strong point’ for three weeks and divert as many enemy troops as possible away from the main front. If all went well, the plateau would serve as a landing ground for Allied airborne forces.

The next day Longe wrote: “Air action continued though less furious. Work, work, my soul for one clear night’s sleep… Enemy appears definitely to be closing in on us from all sides.” The unrelenting strain was taking its toll on the mission’s leader. He had gone days without sleep and, though he did not know it, he had dislodged a vertebrae in his neck during his heavy landing. Houseman thought he looked a physical wreck and pleaded with him in vain to get some rest.  

THE END WAS NOT FAR OFF Longe was still soldiering on when, at dawn on 20 July 1944, the battle for Vercors Plateau reached its climax. Under cover of an air attack, 400 German paratroopers and glider-borne troops staged a coupde-main on and around the landing ground being prepared near Vassieux. “Troops panic, whereas if they had stood their ground we would have killed them all before they landed,” observed Longe. The frenzied fighting swayed back and forth throughout the morning. At one point, Longe received a heartening report that only thirty or forty enemy paratroopers remained and these were holed up in the ruins of the town. Sadly, however, it proved false. Less than two hours later news reached him that around 400 German troops had occupied farms from Vassieux to La Chapelle. “No rest now,” noted Longe, “and I personally don’t mind much what happens to me”. The end was not far off. The next day the Germans renewed their attack with massed infantry. “They suffer terrible casualties but numbers count,” wrote Longe, “and our north western positions are turned while those in the extreme north are cut off. In the south, they have infiltrated round the flanks of our main positions.

“Aert has fallen and Die is about to go. If only we had heavy weapons and more reserves. But all our reserves have been in the line now these past 12 hours. Heavy fire is closing in on us on all sides … Impossible odds face our exhausted Maquis, the Germans are using overwhelming forces including an armoured division and an Alpine Regt … We are being mortared out of existence and bombing and ground strafing from the air continues unabated.” The beleaguered French resisted bravely, but courage was not enough in the face of such an onslaught. With the Germans pressing ever nearer to St Martin, Longe made a final visit to Huet’s embattled HQ to hear a “moving and sincere address” and an admission that their hopes of holding the plateau had been “dashed to the ground”. “As the only British representative there I felt dreadful that we had not been able to do more,” wrote Longe. With the battle lost, all that was left to do was to wish one another “bon chance” and to go their separate ways in a desperate attempt to break out from the “iron ring” drawn around Vercors. 

TOP RIGHT: The ruins of Vassieuxen-Vercors. Barely had the Bastille Day supply drop ended, than the Germans launched a prolonged air attack on the southern plateau. The villages and communities of Vassieux, La Chapelle, St Martin and Rousset were all badly hit. ABOVE LEFT: Flying Fortresses of the US Eighth Air Force pictured during a mass supply drop over the “Free Republic of the Vercors” on Bastille Day, 14 July 1944. As a direct result of a request sent by the Eucalyptus team, seventy-two bombers, flying in groups of twelve, dropped more than 800 containers filled with arms and equipment for the Maquis.

FEBRUARY 2014 109

“UNCANNY SILENCE”

ABOVE: Taken in the spring of 1945, this image shows 1st Lieutenant Andre Pecquet, far right, with fellow members of the US 856th Squadron, an OSS-controlled unit flying secret radio communication missions as aerial links with agents on the ground. Pecquet, who served as Longe’s radio operator in the Vercors, survived the German assault and was decorated with the US Distinguished Service Cross, his country’s second highest award for gallantry. Longe described him as “a delightful individual, with a keen sense of humour, gallant, tireless and efficient with a very keen eye for the ladies”. ABOVE RIGHT: American paratroopers joined with the Vercors Maquis to mount a successful ambush on the Col de la CroixHaute in early July 1944. Around sixty Germans were killed and another twenty-five wounded when a road convoy was attacked, but one of the Resistance fighters was captured and tortured to death. BELOW: On 20 July 1944, the battle for Vercors Plateau reached its climax when 400 German paratroopers and glider-borne troops staged a coup-de-main at Vassieux. A strafing run by Luftwaffe fighters was followed by an airborne assault with converted Dornier Do 17 bombers towing a number of gliders, each carrying between fifteen and twenty men. The assault troops consisted of two companies of Russian, Ukrainian and Caucasian volunteers from the Legionnaire Lehr Bataillon, restyled as the Fallschirm-Bataillon Jungwirth. This is the remains of one the gliders used, a DFS 230, which can be seen mounted on pylons at Vassieux today on the approach to Vassieux-en-Vercors from the direction of La Chapelle. (COURTESY OF NICK WOTHERSPOON)

110 FEBRUARY 2014

“Depressed beyond measure” and weary to the point of exhaustion, Longe, Houseman and a party of about twenty maquisards climbed and scrambled “through trees and brambles, over rocks and up and down the most dreadful slopes” as shots and yells rang out from St Martin. All being well, Longe had planned to rendezvous with Huet the following day and hoped also to meet up with Pecquet, who had hung on till the last to cable final messages before making his own getaway just in time. With the Germans patrolling the tracks, the evaders had to worm their way through a rain-drenched forest. A miserable first night was spent “soaked to the skin” with barely enough food to last a day, listening to the rattle of gunfire and watching villages burn.

Awaking cold and wet, Longe fretted about the mood of some of his party and the failure of Huet to show. In his diary, he noted: “St Martin is occupied now and there is an uncanny silence in the Vercors, an occasional splutter of a MG, perhaps a single shot reply and silence again. It is beginning to prey on everyone’s nerves.” Compelled to squeeze moss for water, Longe, in spite of an injury to his knee, decided to risk returning to St Martin in search of provisions and in the hope of finding out where Huet and the other members of his team were. Attempts were made to dissuade him, but around 19.00 hours he set off, with two volunteers, dodging enemy patrols to return in the early hours with water bottles filled, sacks full of bread, cheese, bacon and ham, a goat and the depressing news that Huet had been forced to withdraw in the opposite direction of their agreed rendezvous. The strain of avoiding detection on a plateau plunged into a reign of terror by murderous German troops bent on inflicting the most brutal punishment on civilians and Resistance fighters alike soon took its toll. Just four days after leaving St Martin, Longe wrote: “John… looks dreadful, his cheeks are concave now instead of convex and his eyes have almost disappeared. He says I look like death warmed up…” The physical and psychological decline among the maquisards was similarly marked. “It is horrifying to see the faces of the other men,” wrote Longe. “They don’t seem able to decide what to do.” www.britainatwar.com

“BURNING HOUSES” Fearing the worst, Longe, Houseman and another Frenchman decided to go it alone. Their plan was to make a last hunt for Huet and Pecquet and, if unsuccessful, to try and escape the Vercors Plateau in search of a radio to report back to Allied HQ. “Although we are preparing to walk right into the arms of the Boche,” wrote Longe, “it is strengthening and comforting to feel that the dreadful period of waiting in silence is over and we three are our own masters for the time being”. The next few days proved as harrowing as any on the plateau with the German troops in complete command of the towns and villages and the population in constant fear of reprisals. On 27 July, Longe noted: “All night long Huns were firing automatic pistols and MGs. Perhaps they are waiting for men who come out of the woods by night.” From a tree-shrouded hill overlooking Tortues, Longe and Houseman watched enemy troops “burning houses” and “driving around in trucks and cars”. But, “spurred on by hunger and thirst”, they took the risk of approaching the buildings in search of supplies. “Every now and then there was a crack of automatic fire which we could not tell whether it was aimed at us or at some helpless civilian,” wrote Longe. “We eventually reached the edge of a cornfield sloping down to the nearest farm … We then saw five or six men in a house nearby and could not decide whether they were Hun or not, but as all young men were in the woods, they must have been Hun. However, in for a penny, in for a pound. John kept lookout while I rolled down the grassy slope … “So giddy when I arrived that I didn’t know which direction I was going. I tried to get some sense out of a small boy but failed; when the dogs barked a woman and a man came round the corner and talked while I squatted behind a wall like a hunted criminal. www.britainatwar.com

“‘Go quick,’ they said, ‘Beaucoup, Beaucoup Boche, ici.’ I began to question them about the local news, but they were too afraid to tell me much … they begged me to go … I moved quickly and quietly across the end of the house and took a peep round the corner. Only one peep was necessary as I looked straight into the face of three members of the Wehrmacht approaching from the other end of the house. “The question as to which of us was the more surprised will never be answered, but I claim to have reacted to the unexpected quicker than they, for I legged it up the side of the mountain faster than I’d moved for a long time … The Boche reacted very slowly and we were well into the cover of the forest before he made a random spray of the edge of the trees with his machine guns.”  

FULL OF HAZARD Movement by day became almost impossible while the nights were punctuated by the bursting of star shells and Verey lights. “We lie and wait again,” Longe wrote following another brush with an enemy patrol. “We hear excited German voices and whistles to their dogs. They are hunting us now … 

TOP LEFT: The rusting steel frame of a DFS 230 glider in Vassieux. It has, in fact, been positioned where the original nave of the village church once stood, the latter being virtually destroyed during the fighting and subsequent German retaliation at Vassieux. (COURTESY OF NICK WOTHERSPOON) TOP RIGHT: Peace had returned to the Vercors Plateau when this couple posed alongside one of the glider wrecks on the southern plateau. ABOVE: The nose section of another of the German gliders deployed during the attack on Vassieux – in this case a Gotha Go 242. The glider-borne assault did not go totally as the German’s envisaged - many of the gliders were caught in the strong winds that are a feature of the Vercors. Some were lost after their towlines separated and they went off-course. Others had wings torn off and crashed, inevitably resulting in deaths amongst those onboard. (COURTESY OF NICK WOTHERSPOON) BELOW LEFT: Debris of war. A row of containers from the Allied air drop which provoked such terrible retribution. LEFT: Major Desmond Longe, second from the left, during a tour of the maquisards’ defensive positions on the Vercors Plateau. In this rare, grainy snapshot, he is seen talking with Colonel Henri Zeller, left, the commander of the Forces Francaises de l’Interieur (FFI) in the southeast region, and Gustave Boissiere (cover name Weather Prophet), who later helped guide Longe and Captain Houseman off the plateau. FEBRUARY 2014 111

Happier times. Desmond Longe, British hero of the Vercors struggle, relaxes at his Norfolk home, with his wife, Isla, and two children.

ABOVE & BELOW: Valchevrière was a small village hidden deep in a forest on the Vercors Plateau. It was attacked by the Germans on 22 and 23 July 1944; many of the members of the maquis were killed in the subsequent fighting. Afterwards the entire village, with the exception of the chapel, was destroyed by the Germans and remains in ruins to this day.

If their dogs get our scent it is the end. The beating of my heart has increased and I am almost afraid that someone will hear its loud poundings as we wait for the next turn in our fortunes.” Longe’s party had found no sign of their colleagues, but they did stumble across some women who gave them some much-needed food. Longe was in a bad way. His lips and face were swollen and his eyes so bunged up he could barely see. Yet he was still thinking clearly enough to know that they had to abandon all hope of finding Huet or Pecquet2 and get away from the Vercors. There was a deathly hush about the plateau that was broken only by the occasional explosion as another farm was blown up. Finding their way barred by a

gorge, hundreds of feet deep and its walls freckled with shrubs, they had no choice but to “go round and up”. “We pull ourselves from shrub to shrub, slipping and clutching every little thing that will hold,” recalled Longe. “We keep stopping for John, who looks dreadfully whacked, but forever cheerful … We crawl and scramble on and after an hour or so we are safe – safe not from Huns or water, but safe from a plunge … to our deaths at the bottom of the gorge.” Wherever they went they heard news only of more atrocities. Near exhaustion and almost crazy with thirst, they plunged on beyond Rencurel towards the River Isère bordering the Vercors plateau. Longe’s mind was now made up: they would have to try to reach Switzerland, some 190 miles away across the French Alps, in order to report before resuming the fight. It was, as Longe observed, “a dreadful idea”, full of hazard, involving a breakout over a fast-flowing river guarded by enemy troops and armed militia intent on ensuring “no male should leave the area alive”. He was, however, determined to give it his best shot.

“UTTER HELL” On 1 August 1944, the two SOE officers, still clad in British army uniforms, bade farewell to their French companion and embarked on the next stage of their epic journey. Scrambling down steep slopes, passing signs of battle and skirting enemy machine-gun posts, they finally reached a farmhouse where, as luck would have it, some maquisards were being hidden. The Frenchmen were astonished to see them, for, as Longe noted, “rumour has it that John and I have both been killed on the eastern side of the Vercors and that my body has, in fact, been seen hanging from a tree”. 112 FEBRUARY 2014

Fed, rested and shaved for only the second time since leaving St Martin, they were guided across the Isère and away from the grim plateau. The pace now quickened as Resistance members hurried them by car and motorcycle along routes regularly used by German convoys. “There were two car loads of us,” noted Longe. “In the leading car the driver [was] armed with a pistol, the man next to him with a Bren gun poking through the windscreen, John and myself in the back with pistols and a man with a Sten pointing through the back window, and the second car had five similarly armed passengers, the floor space of both cars being filled with hand grenades.” Via a series of ‘safe houses’ they made their way into the Chamonix valley where Longe marked his thirtieth birthday on 8 August by beginning the final leg of their escape across some of the highest peaks in Europe. What began with “a dreadful climb” continued, via the formidable Aguillette des Houches and another “ragged peak”, with a two-day trek that was a torture to a man with a fear of heights. Led by an Alpine guide, they passed along ledges so narrow that even “a bird must find it difficult to sit” with a drop “of some thousands of feet at our side”. Longe candidly admitted to going “through utter hell” before, finally, on 9 August 1944, they crossed the frontier at Le Châtelard.

EXONERATED Longe’s ordeal, however, was far from over. Denied access to their “Swiss link”, the two SOE officers were put in jail and then interned for three weeks before being flown back to the UK. There they soon found themselves embroiled in controversy amid accusations that they had deserted Huet and run away to Switzerland. The allegations stemmed from an investigation “indiscreetly and mistakenly conducted”3 by Lieutenant Colonel Francis Cammaerts, the distinguished and www.britainatwar.com

greatly respected leader of the Jockey Circuit. He maintained that Longe and Houseman should have remained on the Vercors Plateau and persisted with their efforts to contact Huet. Instead, he told another SOE agent, “they ran away to Switzerland and left a stink behind”.4 When they heard the rumours, Longe and Houseman demanded a court of enquiry in order to clear their names. Chaired by the SOE chief, Major General Colin Gubbins, the panel gave short shrift to the allegations made by another agent, Captain Harry Rée. These, they said, were made “foolishly and on hearsay only, with no knowledge of the facts of the case and no thought of the effect on the military characters of Majors Longe and Houseman”.5 In exonerating both men, the enquiry concluded that their conduct was

“in accordance with the traditions of the British Army”. Further, they were “worthy of congratulations on their work, performed as it was during periods of stress, privation and danger”.6 Their courageous efforts in support of the Vercors Maquis and their extraordinary escape were eventually honoured by awards of the Military Cross and Croix de Guerre to Longe and an MBE to his loyal deputy. The recommendation for Longe’s MC, written by Gubbins in February 1945, cited his bravery in returning to enemyoccupied St Martin to obtain food and his determination, at great personal risk, to break through the German lines. According to Gubbins, Longe, far from abandoning his post as mission leader, had “demonstrated courage and tenacity in very arduous circumstances”.7 It was a view shared by John Houseman, who paid tribute to “the leadership and resourcefulness” displayed time and time again throughout their ordeal which culminated in Longe delivering a report to the British authorities “under the very eyes of the Swiss Guard, by methods of which even Beaulieu would have been proud”.8 As for Longe, himself, he would go on

ABOVE AND BELOW: Now and then. A line of original graves and the sombre Necropole de la Résistance in Vassieux today with its lines of white crosses commemorating 193 Resistance fighters killed in the 1944 battle for the Vercors Plateau.

to enjoy a successful business career, as the chairman of Norwich Union, but would forever be haunted by the terrible consequences of the heroic yet disastrous battle fought in the foothills of the Alps in the summer of 1944. “The Vercors massacre goes down in history,” he wrote, “as the worst of all France’s horrors”. 

NOTES 1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

(COURTESY OF NICK WOTHERSPOON)

Major Desmond Longe’s unpublished personal account of the Eucalyptus Mission, passed to the author by Duncan Stuart, late SOE Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. All Longe’s quotations are taken from this document. André Pecquet survived the Vercors disaster and was subsequently awarded the US Distinguished Service Cross and the French Legion D’Honneur for his heroism. Findings of the Court of Enquiry, undated. Ray Jenkins, A Pacifist At War: The Silence of Francis Cammaerts (Hutchinson, London, 2009). Court of Enquiry, Op cit. Ibid. Recommendation for the Military Cross to Major Desmond Longe, Royal Norfolk Regiment, signed Major General C. McV Gubbins, 24 February 1945. Major John Houseman, report on the conduct of Major D. Longe to Major General Gubbins, dated 19 September 1944. Beaulieu was SOE’s ‘finishing school’ for secret agents.

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ABOVE: The Grotte de la Luire was the site of one of the worst atrocities of the Vercors struggle. This cave was being used as a temporary hospital for wounded civilians and resistance fighters when it was attacked by German troops on 27 July 1944. Thirty-five of the wounded were massacred on site, whilst those caring for them were captured – the latter executed or deported to concentration camps.

ABOVE LEFT: SOE hero turned civic dignitary. Desmond Longe, who was chairman of Norwich Union for seventeen years, served as High Sheriff of Norfolk in the mid1970s. Described as “a man of service, a man of courage, in war and in peace”, he was also a man of considerable character with an unusual sense of adventure – he once made national headlines by riding a horse from Norwich to Land’s End in a little over eleven days!

FEBRUARY 2014 113

Save in a Fire What I Would

Geoff Simpson asks a top curator or trustee which single item in their collections they would reach for in the event of a disaster.

US JOURNALIST'S WARTIME SCRAPBOOK IWM Duxford, Cambridgeshire

JENNY COUSINS, Project Leader at IWM Duxford’s American Air Museum, explains why she’s chosen a journalist’s wartime scrapbook. “I first came across Virginia Irwin when a colleague and I were working on Somewhere in England: Portraits of the Americans in Britain 1942 to 1945, a temporary photographic exhibition designed to introduce IWM’s newly-acquired Roger Freeman Collection to our visitors. “The collection consists of about 15,000 images of aircraft, airmen and airfields taken by US servicemen in the UK during the Second World War and assembled over a lifetime by celebrated aviation historian and East Anglian native, Roger Freeman. IWM intends to make these images available online in summer 2014, and will be looking to website visitors to help flesh out the stories of the things and people they depict. “I wanted to establish how easy it would be to research a photograph of an unknown American whilst sitting at a desk in England, so we selected twenty-five photographs where we had a name, but little else. One showed a smiling woman talking to an airman, pen and pad at the ready. We knew from the caption on the back of the print that she was Virginia Irwin from Missouri.

“Irwin’s story turned out to be a fascinating one. In the 1930s, she was a features writer for the St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper, writing an advice column and interviewing Hollywood stars. Her request to be sent abroad to cover the war was denied by the Post-Dispatch; they didn’t intend to sponsor a correspondent, least of all a woman. So Irwin took leave of absence and volunteered to work for the Red Cross in the UK. However she continued to send stories back to her paper while she did so. “Just before D-Day, Irwin’s paper changed its mind. Conveniently close to the action, she was accredited as an official war correspondent and set off for France. Despite the attempts of the US Army to corral journalists –

ABOVE: Virginia Irwin interviews Lieutenant Glennon T. “Bubbles” Moran of the 352nd Fighter Group. (IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM; FRE340)

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especially female ones – in Paris, Irwin was not to be contained. Throughout 1944 and 1945, she followed the US Army as it pushed east to Germany. “The scoop of her career came when she and another journalist drove beyond American lines to Berlin, arriving on 27 April 1945. It was four days before Hitler’s suicide and the city was in chaos. As a result of her unauthorised expedition, her

accreditation was revoked, but her paper’s owner, Joseph Pulitzer, was delighted. He gave her a year’s salary as a bonus and considered it one of the most impressive exclusives of the war. “I was able to trace her nephew and was thrilled to be able to visit him and his wife in Joplin, Missouri. Together we went through four boxes of material they had only recently discovered, with the result that IWM now has Irwin’s scrapbooks in its care. The snapshots within them show the range of experiences Irwin had – here she is relaxing against a tank with another journalist, here dancing with Russian soldiers at the Elbe River, here standing on Hitler’s podium at

Nuremberg, here witnessing the horrors uncovered at Buchenwald concentration camp ... To see these pictures is to see the war through Irwin’s eyes. “The object that touches me the most is an album with ‘His Service Record’ embossed on the cover. Clearly a generic product designed to appeal to a large market of returning soldiers, it has pages with pre-printed titles like ‘Amusing stories that came out of the war’. It seems characteristic of Irwin that she has ignored them, pasting her pictures and articles following her own logic and design, just as she created her own path in life. “We hope to feature this scrapbook in the American Air Museum following the creation of new displays in late 2015.” 

IWM DUXFORD SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND: Portraits of the Americans in Britain 1942 to 1945 can be seen in the Mezzanine Gallery in the AirSpace exhibition at IWM Duxford until Monday, 31 March. It is included in general admission to IWM Duxford which is open daily from 10am. For further information, please visit: www.iwm.org.uk.

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