Lt/Cdr (A) R. Cork, DSO, DSC, RN left Henstridge as our Chief Flying Instructor on 31 October 1943. He was appointed to command No 15 Naval Fighter Wing in the USA where he spent the next two months training his new pilots on the very formidable Corsair fighter. Fifteen Wing was then embarked in Illustrious for further working up, before taking part in strikes on the Japanese-held East Indies.
Before dawn on 14 April 1944, Dicky and 19 more Corsairs of No 15 Wing were about to be launched from the flight deck of Illustrious. The ship was about 100 miles off the eastern coast of Ceylon and engaged in working-up her squadrons before making their first strike on the Japanese-held stronghold of Penang in northern Sumatra on 19 April 1944. The sea was a flat calm and Illustrious — with no effective catapults and with such a large range of aircaft on deck — could not provide enough windspeed for a safe take-off in the distance available.
After much searching for wind, Dicky eventually agreed to try to take-off himself and, he said, if he found that he had enough room, it would be safe for the 19 others.
In complete darkness, he only just made it. He asked, on the r/t, for the ship to cancel the take-off until it got light for the others. He was told to land ashore at China Bay, the nearest Air Station.
He flew the 100 miles to China Bay and, in the early morning and still in semi-darkness, he found the place asleep. No radio, no nothing: He circled the landing strip twice. It was a single strip, carved out of the jungle. Nothing moved and there were no lights. A small shed on a 40 foot wooden structure did duty as an air watch tower. The tower was close to the runway on its east side and at its mid point.
Dicky began the usual carrier-type approach to land, flaps and wheels down, navigation lights still showing in the half light. He had no radio contact, either with China Bay or the ship. The latter was, of course, below the VHF radio horizon now that Dicky was below 1000 feet. As there was no natural wind which would signal a proper landing direction, he followed the landing instructions in the ‘landing square’ by the tower. The arrow in this square pointed to a normal left hand circuit and the white ‘T’ pointed in a northerly landing direction.
The Corsair had fuel for four hours flying. It would therefore be landing at its maximum permitted landing weight. Dicky would also realise that in zero wind conditions he would have to use every inch of the runway and would have to have excellent braking in his Corsair to pull up in time, before running off the end. Early Corsairs’ brakes had a tendency to oil-up when unused, as on board a carrier, and Dicky would have known about this possible snag.
He made a normal ADDL approach, with the Corsair’s tail down and in a steady, lefthand curve. The Corsair, like the Seafire, had a poor view forward. It was impossible to see the runway when landing unless the usual carrier approach was made, in a steady left hand turn. While in this turn, he could see the whole length of the runway, as in a Seafire, on his approach, until the final moment just before straightening up before touchdown. After touchdown and with the tailwheel locked and on the runway, and travelling at 70 knots, he would then be entirely blind to his forward view until he unlocked the tailwheel and turned off the end of the runway at the far end, to taxi back to the maintenance area. It was not possible to turn the aircraft more than a few degrees at a time while the tailwheel was in the locked position and with the weight of the aircraft on it.
The report says that Dicky was warned, by light signal, not to land on his first approach. This would have been by a red Aldis Light directed at him from the watch tower as he approached to land. However, Dicky would not have been expecting any signals nor have been able to see the watch tower on his left handed approach from the south, as the Corsair’s nose and wing would have masked that side of the airfield entirely from his view. He would never have been in a position to see the tower or its warning signals on his final approach, unless he was making a normal, RAF, straight-in approach. Even then, the view would have been very restricted in a Corsair. However, if the light had been shone at his aircraft while it was in the downwind part of the landing circuit, provided it had been well directed, he might have seen it. He would not, however, have been expecting any signals for he had seen no activity on the airfield and, in any case, a landing aircraft universally had priority over an aircraft taking off, even if the latter was an Admiral and Dicky had been a Midshipman. This was before the days of universal r/t circuit and taxying controls at airfields, and much depended upon the directions given to the pilot in the ‘landing square’ and the fact that he would expect to have complete priority when making a landing.
Nevertheless, it is true that he went round again for some reason. This might have been because he was not happy with his approach, being over-weight and in zero wind.
He then made a second identical approach. The RAF report said: “He again ignored the warning, landed, and ran head-on into a second Corsair”. The collision was stated to have occurred towards the end of Dicky’s landing run. The other Corsair was apparently about to take-off in the reverse direction to Dicky’s landing.
The pilot of the other Corsair had been ordered to carry out decklanding training on Illustrious. He was probably late for his rendezvous with the ship. It is possible that the normal, inviolate rule giving priority for landings over take-offs, might have been waived. The tower might therefore have exceptionally given Dicky a red Aldis warning light and the other pilot a green. The latter would then line up on the runway, lock his tailwheel and run up to full power for take-off. Once his tailwheel was locked, he would not be able to turn his aircraft until the lock was removed. This was done by a cable and lever in the cockpit. All Corsairs had had recent modifications to their tailwheel assembly and the cable Frelease arrangements were known to be unreliable. It is possible that this might have been the reason for what now happened.
The young pilot in the Corsair, about to take-off, may well have seen the signals from the tower now telling him not to take-off as Dicky was now on finals for the second time and apparently ignoring all signals. But the young pilot would not have been able to make a 180 degree turn to taxi off the runway until he could unlock his tailwheel. These factors and that the Corsair’s forward view was almost nil, would not have been generally known to the RAF staff in the tower. They would normally have been dealing with twin-engined Beauforts, Beaufighters or Blenheims. These aircraft had a perfect view for the pilot to see the oddly positioned control tower when landing or taking-off. Decklanding, tail-down approaches from Naval aircraft would probably have been strange to them and they would not have known about the visibility problems in Naval aircraft and in landing and take-off procedures.
As it was, all the young pilot in the Corsair could do was to flash his navigation lights on and off — which he did — hoping perhaps to warn Dicky, now on the last part of his finals of his presence. But Dicky would not have been able to see them. The tower occupants did, for they mentioned this in their report.
Far from the fault lying with the pilots, the fault must surely have been inadequate communications and the bad siting of the control tower for Naval landing requirements. It was not for another two years that r/t control was fully installed in some airfields in Britain.
Dicky Cork and the young Corsair pilot were buried in the cemetery at Trincomalee. The ceremony was attended by their many friends in the United States Navy’s No 200 Carrier Air Group from Saratoga, as well as by their own Air Group from aboard Illustrious. The two pilots lie there still, guarded during the day and night by the crocodiles in the nearby Mahaweili River.