January to November 1942
My new posting was as Commanding Officer of No. 96 Squadron, which was equipped with Defiants and stationed at Wrexham, and while I was disappointed that it was not a Beaufighter squadron it was my first command and I was very excited about that. With the dawning of the new year 1942, I was settling in at Wrexham, getting to know my flight commanders and aircrews and becoming aware for the first time of my responsibility for some two hundred NCOs and airmen as well.
The Defiant was designed as a day- and night-fighter. In the former role it had been successful in attacking a bomber stream, but when faced with fighters of superior performance it was very vulnerable, particularly after the Germans became aware of their initial mistake of misidentifying the Defiant as a Hurricane, whose silhouette was similar. Thereafter it was only employed in the night-fighter role. The Boulton and Paul gun turret with which it was fitted, although of ingenious design and very effective with its four .303 machine-guns, was very heavy, and when ready for action the aircraft weighed 20% heavier than the Hurricane and had a slightly smaller wing area. Therefore its performance was not very brilliant, and from a pilot’s point of view one had to start thinking in abstract terms as to how best to manoeuvre the aircraft in a scrap to give one’s gunner the best attacking position to bring his guns to bear. This was a departure from the pilot’s normal leading role in an attack, and it meant that pilots and gunners must work very closely together to decide on their tactics. I now teamed up with a regular gunner, Flt Lt Bob Smith, and we got on well together, but I also flew with other gunners to monitor their training.
No. 96 Squadron formed originally with Hurricanes, and in the latter part of 1941 had been able to destroy quite a few hostile aircraft when operating in defence of Liverpool. As luck would have it, when I took over the squadron there was a marked falling-off of enemy action in our area, caused, perhaps, by the Germans moving a considerable portion of their bomber force to the Russian front. I still had several Hurricanes left in the squadron and would fly these from time to time. If the truth be known I very much preferred these flights than in the Defiant, but I was, of course, duty bound to primarily operate the Defiant as it was the squadron’s role aircraft.
The squadron now began to receive the replacement Defiant Mk 2, which had an uprated Merlin engine and was fitted with Mk 3 AI radar. Unlike the Blenheims and Beaufighters the radar screen of the Mk 3 was situated on the pilot’s instrument panel, and so it was he who was solely responsible for interpreting its display. This at least put the pilot back in control of radar interceptions, but the set was largely in the experimental stage and had a poor performance in picking up other aircraft as its range was short and its field was restricted. However, it was excellent for homing on navigation beacons set up at night-flying airfields, and I took advantage of it often and could achieve approaches and landings in very much worse weather conditions than before it was available. At this time there was very little hostile air activity, and flying was mostly confined to training and air exercises. On one such exercise the squadron provided a Defiant escort to six Beaufighters of No. 68 Squadron led by Max Aitken flying over Crewe, followed by a simulated bomber attack on targets in the vicinity of the city for the benefit of Army ack-ack gun regiments. At the end of February the squadron moved into new offices and crew rooms dispersed on the perimeter of the airfield. We had a small party to mark the occasion, and afterwards we all sat around in the crew room discussing the latest news. There was incredulity at the large loss of Allied aircraft, mostly Royal Navy Swordfish torpedo-bombers, suffered at the hands of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prince Eugen when the German ships made a courageous break down the English Channel. We were amazed too that the ships had managed to get so far without being detected. When they were eventually spotted, it seemed that our response was ill considered and inadequate. At the time there was general belief that the escape of these major units of the German fleet was due to a belated response by our forces, but later there was a rumour that Churchill had a hand in the planning of the operation, as he was concerned that had the ships remained in ports in the West they would have been a direct threat to the advance guard of American troops then nearing the UK crammed aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth. But whatever the truth, the German ships were now bottled up in their home ports, from where they took no further part in the war at sea. We were concerned to hear reports from the Far East that were of an even greater calamity. As early as 1920 it had been decided that the main British base in the Far East should be Singapore, and its defence was planned to depend on coastal artillery and locally based torpedo-bombers. When the Japanese invasion was deemed imminent, the war in other theatres was going so badly that the Chiefs of Staff were obliged to abandon any prospects of reinforcement for Singapore. The only air defence that was available was quite inadequate, and the only fighters available were fairly ancient American Buffaloes, which had been rejected as unsuitable for operations in Europe and were hopelessly outclassed by the Japanese Zero fighters. Despite a desperate, courageous defence, we heard with dismay that Singapore had surrendered, with many Allied soldiers taken prisoner. AVM Pulford, the Air Commander, managed to escape by small boat to a little island south of Singapore, where he later died still trying to evade capture.
In the Middle East Rommel was still moving towards Alexandria in Cyrenaica, seemingly unstoppable, although the Hurricanes of the Desert Air Force were beginning to impose an increasing threat to the Panzer tanks with remorseless and ferocious rocket attacks. Despite all this depressing news, we had plenty to take our minds off it and were kept busy on our day-to-day duties. We also had our own tragedy and were mourning the loss of two of our aircrew who had been killed in the crash of a Defiant at Sealand. These were Plt Off Potter-Smith and AC Steed. The cause was obscure and never satisfactorily explained.
The weather in March started off with days of fog and mist, which curtailed most of the flying. We were still evaluating the operational capabilities of the Defiant II, and when the weather improved I did several flights with my gunner and we tried out varying tactics in attacks on an accompanying target aircraft. On the odd days when the fog returned I made good use of the radar homer, which gave me great confidence in returning to base in marginal weather conditions. On one occasion I was scrambled to search for a missing Hampden bomber that was overdue, but after an hour’s fruitless search I was recalled when the Hampden was discovered on a Welsh mountainside, where it had crashed in cloud. On non-flying days the crews sometimes bussed down to Wrexham baths to practise our dinghy drills. News of these visits seemed to have reached the ears of a certain Welsh coracle maker in Llangollen, who got in touch with me and said that he would be prepared to demonstrate to us how to paddle our little dinghies with only one paddle. We were mindful of how difficult it was to make any headway with a one-man dinghy and guessed that the old man would like to feel that he was doing his bit for the war effort, and so he was invited along to the baths. This little, wizened old Welshman, without hesitation, jumped into the water and clambered into one of our dinghies, and with his short little paddle over the stern proceeded to rush up and down the length of the pool as though propelled by an outboard motor. The watching crews were most impressed, and I thanked him profusely and presented him with a squadron badge, which he took away with obvious pride, no doubt to go on display in his coracle workshop, marking his valuable war effort.
April began like March with poor flying weather. The 1st was a very rough day with showers and violent winds strong enough to damage one of our aircraft, although it was securely picketed down in the lee of the hangar. Repairs were put in hand at once and I was able to test-fly the aircraft by the following week. In the middle of the month on a visit to Group Headquarters I was told by the AOC that my squadron would soon be re-equipping with Beaufighters in place of our Defiants. On my return to Wrexham I found out that the final Defiant II had arrived for the squadron but at the same time a twin-engined Oxford was delivered. Before our Defiants went, the squadron took part in another form of operation in a further effort to improve on the existing number of night interceptions achieved against the German raiders. This was the ‘fighter night’ which concentrated a large number of fighters on moonlit nights over one possible target. On this occasion twelve aircraft from 96 Squadron were joined by eighteen from two other night-fighter squadrons, and we were concentrated over Liverpool. It was an interesting exercise, the sky was full of eager fighter crews, doing their best to avoid collisions, but no German raiders turned up. At the end of the month eight of our gunners were posted to flying units in Bomber Command, so it was clear that the Beaufighters would be arriving soon, as they needed a radar operator in the second seat, and not a gunner. On the strength of this I flew down to High Ercall to visit No. 255 Squadron, which was already equipped with Beaufighters, to refresh my memory and get the latest ‘gen’ on the aircraft.
In early May I was pleased to welcome the arrival of the first two Beaufighters but disappointed to be told that it was policy for twin-engined aircraft squadrons to be commanded by an officer of wing commander rank. As I was a fairly junior squadron leader and therefore could not be promoted to fill the post, a wing commander was posted in to command the squadron and I became a flight commander. Nevertheless the task of converting the whole squadron of single-engine pilots to fly twins fell to me, and the training was begun in earnest as I and the new CO were anxious to get the squadron fully operational on Beaufighters as soon as possible. This was the third occasion that I had been faced with this responsibility, and I was getting to be a leading exponent on the Beaufighter. But this time it was different in two respects. Firstly, I was the only twin-engined-trained pilot on the squadron and would have to give dual instruction to my own squadron commander, and secondly, the aircraft we received were Beaufighter Mk IIs. These differed from the other Beaufighters in being fitted with Rolls-Royce Merlin engines in place of the Bristol radials, and while the Mk II was very smooth and pleasant to fly under normal conditions, its single-engined performance was more tricky for an inexperienced pilot. On take-off considerable concentration had to be applied to anticipate what could be a vicious swing if allowed to develop. A twin-engined Oxford trainer had already arrived for the squadron, and a dual Blenheim followed, and I gave priority for training to my two flight commanders, so that they would be able to help with the conversion of the remaining pilots when they had reached an advanced stage. In due course, after a total of 1,844 hours, all of them became fully operational on the Beaufighter without any serious incident or accident. Very gratifying for me, and I was later Mentioned in Dispatches for my efforts.
Flying in the one or two of the Defiants left, the squadron continued with training exercises and cooperation with units of the Army. On one of the latter exercises, while beating-up an Army post, one of our pilots in a Defiant, Plt Off Bowan, made a gross error in judging his height, and pulling out too low he crashed into the ground and was killed. His gunner, Plt Off Cadman, survived the crash but died later in hospital. Some days later a sergeant flying a Blenheim lost one of his propellers in flight but with commendable skill managed to land the aircraft safely on one engine. I was reminded of a similar incident when one of the pilots from No. 600 Squadron had suffered the loss of a propeller on a return flight from Boos in Normandy, but he had crashed into the sea and he and his gunner had been lost.
I was thoroughly enjoying my Beaufighter flying now that conversion training was completed, and on 15 June I was attached to Rolls-Royce Derby for a detailed engine-handling course on the Merlin. It turned out to be an excellent course technically, and needless to say I and the other students were lavishly entertained when out of the classroom. While there we learnt that the company had approached a well-known artist to produce a stained-glass window depicting aircraft and aircrew of the Battle of Britain, which they were proposing to erect in the main hall of the Derby works, dedicated to the Few. I was invited to attend the unveiling of the window, which was designed by Hugh Easton and which was revealed by Lord Tedder at a ceremony on 11 January. The dedication read, ‘Tribute to the Few’, and the window is remarkably stirring and well worth seeing, and represents a generous gesture by the Rolls-Royce Company. When I got back from the engine course I was tasked with a reconnaissance of several local landing fields to assess their suitability for operating Beaufighters at night. These included Rednal, Montford Bridge, Condover and Bratten. They were all grass airfields and presented quite difficult approach and landing conditions in daylight, let alone at night. They had obstructions on the approaches, some of which could perhaps be cleared, but most of them had nearby rising ground that made them quite unsuitable. It was clear that Command Headquarters was getting pretty desperate for more bases from which to operate its night-fighters. I had another look at a grass airfield when I was invited to liaise with No. 70 Field Force Brigade, which was based at Shobdon. On arrival overhead in my Beaufighter I could see that the field was covered in a vast flock of sheep, and I wondered if the ‘pongos’ hoped to have a good laugh at my discomforture. But without further ado I set about herding the animals up in my Beaufighter, with one wingtip almost touching the ground as I did steep turns around the field, and in a very short time had the flock cowering in the far corner of the field. As I was landing I saw a Hurricane arrive overhead, and this followed me in to land as the pilot was also visiting the brigade. We had a successful liaison visit, neither side commenting on the sheep, and after an al fresco lunch I was about to taxi out to take off when the Hurricane pilot indicated that he could not get his aircraft to start, so he clambered aboard the Beaufighter and settled down sitting on the cannon, after being introduced to Becky, for a lift back to his base. There were several more Army liaison exercises in the next few days, including simulated ground strafing and low-level attacks on Army targets, and these made a welcome change to the constant frustrating night patrols undertaken by the Beaufighters without conclusive results at that time. In the middle of August I flew a Beaufighter to Wittering, of fond training school memory, where I was to undergo a four-day blind-flying course flying Master IIs. Instrument flying was of great importance still, for we were fast becoming an all-weather squadron, with radar aids and ground control making it possible and necessary to fly in much lower weather limitations. It should never be forgotten that our role of night-fighter differed markedly from the day boys, who very seldom had to fly on instruments for any length of time and usually had bright clear skies as their medium.
I was hardly back from Wittering with my updated instrument rating than I was off to Henleaze, near Filton, another airfield of happy associations, where I was to do a Bristol engine-handling course. This was a clear indication that the squadron would shortly be re-equipping with the Beaufighter VI, which was fitted with a pair of Bristol Hercules engines. This was good news, as the VI was a much more manageable and reliable aeroplane than the previous mark with Rolls-Royce Merlins.
At the beginning of September my flight was moved south to Honiley, an airfield south of Coventry. I led the formation of Beaufighters taking off one after another in a stream from Wrexham. As soon as I was airborne my navigator came through on the intercom and reported that the last Beaufighter had swung badly on take-off and had crashed just outside the perimeter of the airfield. On landing at Honiley I was horrified to learn that both the pilot, Plt Off Birkbeck, and his radar operator had been killed in the crash at Wrexham. This was the first fatal accident that any of my squadron had suffered during the conversion to Beaufighters and since becoming operational, and I was very distressed over this tragic loss of two well-liked crew members. On the first two nights after arriving at Honiley, George, my new operator, and I were scrambled on operational patrols under the control of Comberton radar. Several contacts were followed but no visual contact was made, although one was chased for half an hour and we only turned back when recalled, as at that stage we were not allowed to take the radar sets too far over enemy-occupied territory. The following week I flew several of my officers and Becky in an Oxford up to Wrexham to attend the funeral of our two colleagues.
In October the remainder of the squadron moved down from Wrexham and the last Beaufighters IIs were withdrawn. Within a month the squadron was operational on the Bristol-engined Beaufighters, which were also fitted with updated AI. Few raiders came the way of the West Midlands, however, so we had little opportunity to prove their worth against a German target. For the rest of the year we consolidated our interception training, and off duty I had the opportunity to take up playing rugby again. After getting into training and a practice match to mould a team into reasonable shape, the station team had a tough away match with Coventry and got badly beaten, and it was clear that more training was required. I arranged a nightly gym session for all aircrews not on duty, and a semblance of a rugby team gradually emerged.
I was still very busy back at the squadron air-testing the new Beaufighters and the AI equipment and getting my crews into a high state of operational readiness, and so it was some time before I had any spare time.
During standby in the crew room at dispersal we relieved the boredom by discussing the war situation in the other theatres. In Egypt the Eighth Army had at last managed to reverse its fortunes and it now had a good chance of securing Tunisia. It had terrific air support, particularly from the cannon-mounted Hurricanes that were creating havoc among Rommel’s tanks. American troops had been landed at Algiers, Oran and Casablanca and were advancing under their own air umbrella. The attitude of the French in Tunisia was interesting in that the resident commanders adopted an attitude of passive resistance to both sides and kept out of sight as far as possible, although they did attempt to blockade the ports. The Russians were now counterattacking between the Volga and the Don and scoring considerable gains, and the Germans were beginning to wonder just what they had taken on.
At home things were fairly quiet, and although operational patrols were maintained no contact was made with the Luftwaffe. With the squadron crews the chief excitement was the forthcoming dance at Comberton, the radar station that controlled our aircraft when on operations or interception practices. All off-duty personnel had been invited, and happily there were a number of WRAF girls around to act as partners. The day after the dance George Evans, my radar operator, and I were air-testing a Beaufighter when a cylinder blew off the starboard Hercules sleeve-valve engine and caused a lot of damage. I set up a single-engine approach and landed without any hassle, and was just in time to take a telephone call from Wrexham with the splendid news that my daughter had just been safely brought into the world and mother and daughter were both well. Champagne miraculously appeared at dispersal, and toasts were drunk to the new baby and her dad’s successful single-engine landing, not forgetting poor George, who had an anxious ride in the back seat grimly holding on to Becky, who was quite oblivious of any problem.