This book is a story of WW2 aeroplanes and the gallant young men who flew them. But what of the man who tells the story? His experiences as a little boy, who emerged from a difficult, often turbulent childhood through somewhat lonely youthful years, but somehow developed independent resourcefulness, perseverance, loyalty, leadership skills and strong convictions.
It must be puzzling for the younger generations to imagine what life was like before WW2: no television or modern technology, few mod. cons. (many homes still had outside lavatories), fierce moral standards, and respect for one’s elders and betters when children were seen and not heard. Living on the banks of his beloved Hamble river, the adolescent Mike slowly developed an improving relationship with his father, sailing on Edith Rose, and spending hours watching the boat builders at Moody’s yard, where he gained not only knowledge from the craftsmen there, but also off-cuts of wood, nails etc. so that he was able to build his first canoe, entirely on his own, at the age of fifteen. (He built eight boats in his lifetime, including two Flying Fifteens in which he raced at Cowes, often against Prince Philip and Uffa Fox, and a 27 foot cruising sloop which we sailed as a family on holiday to France every year for fifteen years.) However, he still ate his meals in the kitchen with the maid, and only on rare occasions with his father and stepmother in the dining room at Broomhill!
Few letters were saved from those years, and of wartime, but those that were reveal much of the character of that young man; first as a boy chorister in Winchester Cathedral, then a Metropolitan policeman, and finally the fighter pilot who was CO of two squadrons at the age of twenty four, thousands of miles from home in an alien Pacific, not expecting to survive the Japanese onslaught.
13.4.31 Pilgrim’s school
my very gran
As you asked me some Ques. here are the answers. No 1. I have not had any pocket money yet and Mr Woods stopped it a term ago but I might be able to get some tuck with the money they might give me. when they said we suggest ten shillings (50p) a term and it will be given out regularly every week as for that we do not have it given out every week and we have not had any all this term ... Ques.3. I have written to dad and asked him if I can be a scout and here is the outfit ...
10.5.31 Cathedral school Winchester
My very dear Gran
When you come into the cathedral, if you do, try and come early and then you can come into the alter place or you go past the choir and sit on the right hand side looking up at the alter then you can see me on the left side ... I am glad I can play cricket now and I scored 8 runs on Saturday. I sometimes tell tales in the night in the green dorm. I suppose you could not ask dad whether I could be a scout ... much love Michael.
He gave loyal support to the Old Choristers Association for many years and was still attending reunions at the age of eighty-four. Joining the all male environment of the Metropolitan Police when eighteen, Mike lived in the police house at 82 Charing Cross Road. After the peace of the Hamble river, it must have been a big shock to the system in more ways than one, but good friends were made. Ralph Kirker became a lifelong friend and we visited him, and Mary, in Swaziland in 2003.
Like so many young men in both World Wars, Mike was desperate to join up, feeling he had a duty to his country. When the Police finally agreed to release him, he joined the Fleet Air Arm on Taranto night, 11 November 1940. Training to fly, life was a mixture of excitement, fun, discomfort and the “pash” of the moment, but with little idea of what was to come.
24.8.41 Royal Naval Air Station, Yeovilton, Somerset.
My dear Dad
I had a marvellous time in Ilfracombe, enjoying every minute of it ... the H—were awfully decent and paid for a lot of my grub and stuff which I had at their hotel and fixed me up at another hotel. I paid in advance so they couldn’t pay for it although they tried to. I’m afraid Patricia “got” me, though she doesn’t know it, and we had a super time together. She really is the works. I haven’t done any flying except test some wireless gear on a Fulmar today. Cheers. Mike.
Over the next few months flying became more intense; and after joining HMS EAGLE at the end of 1941, conditions got tougher, danger ever present – and there were rats on the ship.
23.1.42 HMS Eagle c/o GPO London. (Some of this letter was censored) = (c)
My dear Dad
Another line to say that everything isn’t at all bad and once the weather cheers up there will be a lot more to do. It was quite exciting watching them (c) but nobody went over the side, even ours! though one went round again and just scraped by (c) (c) stalled at 15 feet up and came down with a flomp. Luckily nothing broke.
I was duty boy (Squadron Duty Officer) and had to career around the slippery flight deck waving different coloured flags at different people helping (?) get them (lost my hat but I chased it down the deck to the cheers of many onlookers) down below before the next bloke arrived. The judgement is superb, it’s all over in 30 secs from the time of touchdown.
I had to sleep in the Captain’s dining room right aft with about 6 others (because of Berkeley Square) and was awakened to cries of “Man Overboard” “Away Lifeboat’s Crew” and a lot of other shouting such as ‘catch this’, ‘hang on’ etc. A stiff breeze was blowing and in the pitch darkness just before dawn, he was never seen again, and nor was the lifeboat’s crew for 3 hours or so – absolutely frozen as they turned out with practically no warm clothing on, I think ... we lost another bloke the other day, but he hung on to a rope and was rescued.
Early in 1942, as the attacks on the Malta convoys began to take their toll, letters became shorter, the censor vigilant. At last, there seems to have been some contact with his mother, who disappeared from his life when he was five years old. Music, always an essential essence and comfort, helped the tension on HMS Eagle.
14.2.42
My dear Dad
There is absolutely no news that I can tell you. I wrote to Mum yesterday. 2 of us are writing letters and on both sides of the desk is a gramophone working in relays. Gigli etc. We’ve got about 75 records between us. Don’t be anxious if you don’t hear from me for some time.
Mike lost everything, of course, when Eagle was torpedoed and sunk in August 1942. With her grandson always in her prayers, Granny wrote on the same day to his father:
14.8.42.
My very dearly loved son Launcelot
Under the shadow of the Almighty.
Your wire has just arrived saying that Michael is safe; the battle in the Mediterranean seems to be going on a long time and we were wondering how he was. I have a sweet photo by me of when he was four years old. I remember when he was eleven, I felt he needed more supervision than I could give him, but I did not like parting with him: when he was very young, he seemed to like me to “mother” him ... I went to see Peggy yesterday ... (rest of letter lost.)
Peggy was Mike’s sister, three years older, who had been traumatised by the separation of her parents, a succession of unsuitable foster homes and the loss of her mother’s love and care. With the unsympathetic attitudes and lack of knowledge of that time concerning mental illness in children, she had been in a local psychiatric hospital for some time (a fact kept from Mike for years),but was visited regularly by Granny.
Operation Torch, the Oran landings, is described fully in the book and in a long, pithy letter to his father in which he says we had onions for lunch – What Hell! and concludes:
God, it was a mix-up, that fight. We uncorked 3 bottles of champagne and sent one down to the Flight Sergeant. I had my health drunk by Hamish and the CO who waxed exceeding happy. To CO Flying we proposed a toast ‘To bigger and better squadrons aboard the BITER ‘and the CO piped up and said ‘You wouldn’t get better’. And we all felt very pleased. That sortie cost us 21 a/c lost. 6 pilots safe. None shot down except 3 Albacores.
Mike’s first son, Peter Glen, was born in October 1943. With only occasional days spent at home over the next year, there was little chance to bond with this new baby and share in his development. Little did Mike know that by the time he returned to UK in March 1946, his marriage would already be over. The last he saw of his son was in 1947 when Glen was taken to South Africa by his mother and her new husband. They were not to meet again for 43 years. After his mother’s death in 1986, Glen promptly traced his natural father through the Royal Navy and they were reunited at Durban airport in 1990, so alike in looks, manner and immediate affection. We visited again in 2003, and they kept in regular contact until Glen’s untimely death.
As 1944 progressed, the Allied Forces geared up for the organised secret onslaught on the Nazi regime. The Solent and South Coast saw a massive invasion force assembling. The tension must have been immense; thoughts of loved ones first and last each day.
On D Day –1 (5th June) Mike wrote to his wife:
My darling girl
No letter from you today.
This is going to be very short and most uninteresting, I expect. I have rather a lot on my mind at the moment and so much would I love to tell you all about it. We hope to begin the second front tomorrow, round about some unearthly hour we get up. Ah me. What chaos it will be. The safest place anywhere around and about is most certainly going to be the air. Never fear, my darling, I’ll be alright.”
Over the next three to four weeks, Mike wrote almost daily letters, the fear of disaster ever present. Every day, a friend got hit or shot down. Lack of sleep, inadequacies of their aircraft, and concern for friends all took their toll. Two, sometimes three, sorties a day were common.
D + 2 (8th June)
“I feel very weary. I seem to have run into more than my fair share of trouble again. By the way, our losses yesterday were pretty formidable and we have been forbidden to shoot up any lorries or anything. The majority of our losses were by light flak, which the Germans are bloody good at. Tiny, Dicky and Val, Foxley and an RAF type all got shot down ...
D + 4
I had to get up at 0345 just to stand by as my frequency was not operating. However, by 0630 I did a trip with Keane. Val and Sam arrived back today. Sam got a 190 too. He hurt his face on the reflector sight after crashing when he had an argument with a 190. Tiny ditched in the sea. This evening there was a hellava tank battle going on between us and the gerrys in a wood. We plumped a few 15g Bricks amongst them and they rushed south as hard as they could, raising clouds of dust. They must fear the sight of our planes overhead, ‘cos they know it means they’ll get shelled and they start tearing around all over the place.
D + 6
In the afternoon I went a bit further west and saw the gerrys in the process of digging themselves in to a hillside with bags of guns and wagons and so forth. Springyard was quite maddening. Her R/T was quite useless. Bugger me, it’s a small thing surely to get the R/T working I should have thought. I had to call her up for 30 minutes before they decided to answer ...
D + 10
That really was a heavenly two days and did me all the good in the world. I feel it in my blood that the chances are they’ll post me to Ceylon or something. Have a trip at 4.30 over the Cherbourg side. Find a gun battery of 2 heavy guns camouflaged like hell, with gerrys in slit trenches around and about, 10 miles inland ... then we were wanted to fly again. I eventually got airborne 10 minutes late at 2030, and as we were crossing the IOW, we were told to return.
Sunday 2 July
No letters, no nothing from you. What goes on?
I had quite an interesting trip over the other side last time and spent the night over there and came back yesterday morning. Keane was hit by flak (I did a quick disappearing act into cloud when they opened up), and had to force land at one of our landing fields there. I later landed to see how he was getting on, but popped a tyre, and I had to stay the night on a straw paliasse in a tent. Guns going bang and aircraft roaring around all night.
By early August 1944, Mike was based in the Orkneys in 880 Squadron and involved in the eternal quest for the Tirpitz. Flying above the Arctic Circle, all pilots knew they had no chance of survival if they had to bale out, or if their ship was torpedoed. Only one scrap of a letter survives:
We strike a clear patch in the weather and the strike takes off again – no Seafires except CAP (Combat Air Patrol). Frazer bursts a tyre landing and Leighton a tail wheel and oleo. The fighters secure one hit confirmed through the smoke, but Barras arrived and no Tirpitz as too much smoke though they bomb the gun flashes. Successful attack. Homeward – Faroes bound, with no fuel left hardly. Stand bys all the way, blast it.
On Christmas Eve 2013, a small parcel arrived at my home. It was the Arctic Star medal awarded to Mike posthumously for his involvement in the ill fated Arctic Convoy, JW53, and the hunt for the Tirpitz. It will be greatly treasured even if it is 70 years too late!
Promoted to be Commanding Officer of 880 squadron in August 1944, Mike then spent most of the last year of the war on the aircraft carrier HMS Implacable, which he described as a ‘happy ship’. His boys, some as young as nineteen, slowly formed a cohesive group with their young CO (aged twenty four! ), and practised hard to perfect new methods of attack. By early 1945, they were on their way to the Pacific; yes, via Ceylon!
3.5.45. Ceylon
My dear Dad
I have been meaning to write for so long as I imagined that things would eventually quieten down a bit. But they haven’t and I see no possibility of it on this ship as we all work like Trojans at top speed the whole time. We have had a lot of bad luck since I last wrote and have lost another 3 (besides 1 just before we left), of our boys, ALL excellent people too. Mostly by sheer bad luck, a little good luck would have saved them (not by enemy action incidentally). It has been unbearably hot and now it is fairly cold again, and we are back in blues....we used to bathe as it was too hot to fly. Everything you looked at crawled or hopped or flew, and more often than not, stung. I wonder how your 14 foot dinghy sails. Hamble is quite a long way away and you’re asleep I expect, anyway ...
Now in Australia, and with the war over in Europe (there were no ecstatic V.E. celebrations for the Forgotten Fleet in the Pacific), Mike was still to face Kamikasi pilots and the immense problems of training new young pilots with too few flying hours. Thoughts of home must have sustained him and he maintains his positive approach.
22.5.45.
My very dear Dad
My letters are disgracefully few and far between but life is rather a mad rush here in Australia and I haven’t enough mental equilibrium to start writing to all the people I owe letters to ... the boys are trying hard but with so many inexperienced school boys almost which we have, we have to go slowly and it is hardly like the old days when I first had the squadron. They keep putting up the most incredible blacks by landing with drift and ground looping – so elementary...I think of you fitting out E R and your dinghy. Spring only happens in England and France, it is marvellous. England must be such a Happy (?) place to live in now the war is over. French wines? More beer? No blackout and so forth ...
10.7.45.
My dear Dad
A long time as usual since I have written. Things are going quite well for us now. Perhaps you may have read we had a go at TRUK the other day. It was most interesting to think that there are 20,000 JAPS there without hope of help or relief thousands of miles from anywhere – and they are so hungry they are eating ...? We are even busier just now and are fairly far North now. Don’t tell Ursula, she might worry. It’s her birthday on 17 or 18 August. Please don’t forget, Dad. Mails are irregular in arriving on board, but that is only because of the impossibility of transfer of mails when we spend up to two weeks or so at sea at a time.
The ship is very efficient now and the boys are right on the ball. We are the most efficient British carrier out here, but the Admiral will not realise it as he is aboard another one, surrounded by his gilded staff who know nothing about flying. Cheers, Mike.
The friendship and loyalty of the surviving British pilots of 880 squadron was to last for the next sixty years. The first reunion began in 1986, then nearly every year until 2007. Reminiscing, laughing, ribbing each other, they relived those dangerous days as though they had never parted. As wives, we listened and rejoiced in their memories. Mike was still ‘The Boss’. More than one remarked to me ...” Mike was a brilliant pilot. If he was leading us, we felt we were safe ... I really think I owe my life to him.” Over the last year or so, the last few of the boys have ‘crossed the bar’ – Norman, Len, Dennis, Peter. Never to be forgotten.
The atom bombs fell on two Japanese cities. Many died, but many more in the Pacific survived. Mike’s last airmail letter of the war is full of hope and longing:
17.8.45.
My dear Dad
Thank the Lord it is now almost over. What a hellava shock to us that the Japs threw their hands in. We were just finishing the first round as far as they were concerned, before, I am sure, they or we intended invading Japan. Doubtless the atomic bomb must have accelerated their process of oriental thought somewhat. For right up to the last hour there were Japs trying to commit Kamikasi or Harakiri on us! I myself have shot down 6 Japs, the squadron has shot down 16 and damaged 25. On the ground and in the air. A marvellous record. We have been flying 220 or 240 miles to our targets, overloaded with the most fantastic amount of petrol to do it. Japan is a lovely delicate green from the air, and tons of shipping and even yachts around and about in their thousands and in harbours. I have been recommended for the immediate award of the D.S.C. again. As this is the end I thank God I am safe for my Ursula and once again shall be with her, and also not forgetting that I love the Hamble river and come and see you and put to sea in ER once more. I have all the set up for building a model in my cabin. Could you spare the blueprints of ‘Edith Rose’? Could you send them to me and I will present you with the result! Mike.
Once back in Sydney, with the excitement slowly ebbing, Mike stayed with the Kater family on their ranch farm in the outback. Not very well, he was forever grateful for this respite, so far from home, and never forgot it. His concern for his own family had become a major factor and he knew he needed to get home to see if it could be sorted out. Following his unpopular request for compassionate leave, he sailed home on HMS Indefatigable with barely alive POW’s, and arrived in Portsmouth in March 1946. No celebrations for this ship either!
He was to find that his domestic situation was irreparable. His flat despair is obvious:
29.6.46 St. Merryn
My dear Dad
Thank you for your two letters. I’m glad to hear that you are better. Next weekend Thursday or Friday I hope to come down and see you. I’ll ask Ursula if she wants to see me or whether she wants any jobs done first, but it’s no use going home for leave. I shall probably fly to Lee-on-Solent and make my way from there ...
Went for a sail yesterday and when running out of Padstow harbour with all the locals lining the quay – jibed all standing and nearly turned over. The horse had jammed and I wasn’t looking out. I’ll wire you later, love Mike.
In 1947, joining No 6 course at the Empire Test Pilots School, ‘life became an adventure again’. He continued test flying, as related in his second book Up in Harm’s Way, for the next twenty years. Tall, dark and handsome, although always far too trusting, he married again and had three more children, but his career took another knock when this marriage, too, did not last.
On retirement from the Royal Navy at the age of fifty, nothing daunted, he undertook a three year teaching qualification at Exeter, completing it in two years, and embarked on a new career as a teacher of Physics. Serious eye problems, undoubtedly caused by exposure to unprotected ultra-violet light in his aeroplane’s cockpit during a test flight, curtailed this career at the age of sixty-two. Always proactive, never dull, and still manually very skilful, he built his last boat, a 27 foot sloop, in the front garden (lifted out by a giant crane!), and continued the renovation of our 16th century house and garden, made classic inlaid furniture and wrote two books.
Shakespeare tells us there are seven Ages of Man. I hope the last three for him were the most content. We celebrated our 40th Wedding Anniversary in 2009, quietly, with our children; family life at last, which Mike valued above all else, and which had eluded him for so long. Younger than his years, there was a ‘Peter Pan’ quality about this complicated, talented, charismatic and inspiring man. The privations and stresses of his young life served only to make him stronger. Straightforward to the verge of tactlessness, often unpredictable, intriguing and infuriating at the same time, he was always dependable in a crisis, affectionate and forgiving. He dearly loved all his children, encouraged and supported them in their interests, wrote hundreds of letters to them and was always there when needed. His sense of fun, enthusiasm and zest for life remained unquenched until Lewybody disease, a cruel and devastating form of Dementia, showed its ugly face; this steadily and inexorably destroyed his skills, mobility, memory, speech and thought; but music saved his soul.
His last conscious actions were for his children – a wink and a kiss.
Joan Crosley
April 2014.