Library Reference Number: 213
Founder Member Of An Exclusive RAF Club
Perhaps as a rebellious blow against the whims of Lady Luck, members of RAF aircrew caught up in misfortune but managing to cling to life, decided to form exclusive clubs with strict entrance qualifications. Examples during world war two being aircrew who survived by parachute entered Caterpillar Club membership, and those surviving at sea became members of the Goldfish Club. A vastly different exclusive club evolved with the emergence of a New Zealand plastic surgeon who treated aircrew suffering from disfigurement and severe burns with pioneering, untried methods. The aircrew patients at East Grinstead became something of pioneers themselves, so much so, that on 20th July 1941 they decided with plastic surgery in its infancy and when being treated by medical experimentation, it seemed appropriate to form a “Guinea Pig Club.”
One of the small group of founder members on that date was a young pilot named Derek Martin. Born in 1920 at Cheam, Surrey, he had started flying training pre-war at eighteen years. By the age of nineteen he had entered operational flying over the Bay of Biscay, and by the age of twenty was Captain of the largest operational aircraft in the world - the Short Sunderland Flying Boat, heavily engaged in the Battle of the Atlantic.
The pioneering plastic surgeon from Dunedin, New Zealand, was of course named McIndoe later to become Sir Archibald McIndoe CBE, FRCS. also gaining several foreign honours, and later taking part in founding the British Association of Plastic Surgeons (BAPS). Incredibly, despite his serious injuries sustained in an air crash, Derek Martin on responding to McIndoe’s treatment returned to duty after spending a year in the East Grinstead hospital.
This was not the first occasion that things had not gone to plan for Derek Martin, for on 1st September 1940 flying as second Pilot and attempting to land on a very dark night after a long operation, their Sunderland ran into a cliff on Lismore Island at about 80 miles per hour. His injury on that occasion was slight compared to this later event.
As a young flying boat Captain totally immersed in the gravity of the situation whereby German U-boats were creating a strangle-hold on vital supplies reaching British shores, Derek Martin was prepared to fly for very long demanding hours in protecting those convoys. In the Prologue to “The Webfooted Guinea Pig” he wrote:-
Britain waged a single-handed struggle against the U-boats for the first two and a half years of the war. Royal Air Force Coastal Command strength never exceeded 70,000 yet 8,218 aircrew were killed and 2,100 injured. 2,060 aircraft were lost and 192 U-boats sunk. Without the work of R.A.F. Coastal Command there would have been no Battle of Britain, no bomber offensive and no invasion of Europe, The war could not have continued because we were losing more than 4,000,000 tons of shipping every year.”
In the same Prologue Derek Martin quotes Winston Churchill’s statement “It was not until April and May (1943) that the U-boats were beaten and the mastery of the lifelines across the Atlantic were finally won. Without this no amphibious operation on the enormous scale required to liberate Europe would have been possible" (Winston Churchill’s “History of the Second World War” Volume V page 4).
Continuing to quote Churchill in his Prologue to “The Webfooted Guinea Pig“, Derek mentions an important point made by Churchill “The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the war. Never for one moment could we forget that everything happening elsewhere, on land, at sea, or in the air, depended ultimately on its outcome, and amid other cares we viewed its changing fortunes day by day with hope or apprehension"
In the final stages of his Prologue, Derek again refers to Churchill “In the map on page 12 of his book, Churchill indicates that the day of victory was1st May 1943. In future years we should remember those of the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and the Merchant Marine who fell in this little-known but vital battle.”
“In the deep bosom of the ocean buried
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments"
Richard III Act 1
However, before the arrival of the “victorious wreaths” many were to pay the price of freedom, and this extract referring to Derek Martin is taken from “Reconstruction of Warriors” by E. R. Mayhew (ISBN-1-85367-610-1).
“Still not yet 21, Martin was given command of his own Sunderland, and he and his crew continued their gruelling schedule of escort and anti submarine patrols in freezing temperatures, appalling weather and at risk from attack by enemy aircraft. On 14th March 1941 Martin and his crew were called out to investigate reports of a U-boat operating south of Iceland. Despite the fact that they had only just returned from a 12-hour mission (ten of them at night) and had been given no time to sleep, they set off again for another12-hour round trip. Some 600 miles and four hours later, they had found nothing and began their return to base. Visibility was poor, the night was dark, cloud was low, fog was forming and the sea was dead calm, but Martin was at the limits of his fuel capac ity and so a diversion to a safer landing area was our of the question. Flying over Oban he saw the three lights of the flarepath through the fog beneath him. After two failed attempts at landing, Martin believed he had got the approach just right, but the combination of fog and the flat sea made it impossible to judge the height of the aircraft, and rather than land on the water, the Sunderland ploughed under it.”
“Martin's first reaction was relief that the relentless roar of the engines, which were located only feet from the flight deck, had stopped. To this day he is not quite sure how he exited the stricken and sinking aircraft - he remembers an hallucination at one point where he saw himself strapped in his pilot's seat - but he was eventually hauled out of the freezing Atlantic into a rescue launch. Martin's injuries were so bad his rescuers threw a blanket over him, assuming he was dead. Their atti tude was all too understandable: Martin's scalp had been almost entirely ripped away from his head, his skull had been damaged and his left eye hung out of a torn and smashed socket. His 'corpse' was left on the quay side at Oban while the rescuers tended to some of the living casualties, but when signs of life were seen, desperate efforts were made to revive him. The local surgeon patched up his head and scalp, and as soon as he was strong enough to be transported. he was sent to East Grinstead.”
A witness after the event, Squadron Leader Ted Cowling, reported he had seen the body’s head split open and recalled seeing part of the brain. The left eye was out of its socket and hanging down the body’s face. Feeling no pulse he had covered the ’corpse’ with a sheet. He was in shock at the sight, and although drinking on duty was illegal he went off to down a large Scotch. The ’body’ had somehow survived and was taken into care of McIndoe.
As experimental and pioneer surgery progressed, Archibald McIndoe arranged for patients to be sent to the Palace Hotel, Torquay, for rest and recuperation between phases of surgery. On this event Derek Martin writes:-
“But the Palace Hotel was boring for an active 21 year old. When McIndoe sent me there again I thought I had a better idea. I went to Headquarters Coastal Command and convinced them that I had been released from hospital to keep my hand in flying. How I did this, I will never know. My head was bandaged in a huge turban and I could hardly see out of my left eye. However, they were very short of pilots so I was attached to the flying boat Operational Training Unit at Alness, near Invergordon.”
“At Invergordon I found the last Singapore - a huge biplane with four Rolls Royce engines, two pulling, two pushing. No one at Invergordon had flown Singapores. I had trained on them at Calshot so I offered to fly it to give air experience to aircrew who were training at the unit. I often wonder what they would have thought if they could have seen their pilot with bandaged head and one eye!”
“When I returned to East Grinstead for further plastic surgery McIndoe was furious that I had been flying. Many pilots had returned to flying after leaving the hospital but no one had ever gone back onto flying while they were in the middle of hospital treatment. Before I went to Invergordon and while I was still in Kindersley Ward, an event took place which was to have a profound effect on my life and the life of everyone at East Grinstead during the years after the war. The Guinea Pig Club was formed.”
A short history of the Guinea Pig Club written by Jack Toper MBE in 2009 states:-
“On 20th July 1941, some of these airmen were passing their time chatting in a newly erected hut at the hospital when one of them suggested forming a Club. Someone claimed The Guinea Pig Club would be appropriate, after all Guinea Pig animals were mainly used for medical experimentation, and so were the burned airmen as burns treatment and plastic surgery was in its infancy.”
Picture Notes: First Picture: Derek Martin, Flying Boat Pilot, aged 19, taken in London street. - Second Picture: Wg Cdr Martin, aged 78, taken at Oban on occasion when he unveiled Memorial to Flying Boat crews (Oban 1998.) - Third Picture: A familiar sight to Flying Boat crews when they arrived at location of Convoys, Allied ships sinking after being torpedoed by German U-boats.
“The Club was duly formed with a committee and Mr McIndoe as its President. The Secretary was a pilot with badly burned fingers, which meant he was excused from writing many letters and the Treasurer was a member whose legs were burned, this ensured he could not abscond with the Funds.”
In an extraordinary turn of events, Wing Commander Derek Martin was to eventually make such a remarkable recovery, that after about a year in hospital he returned to operational flying and later commanded a Flying Boat Training Unit at Pembroke Dock. In 1944 he was posted to the Far East, having been appointed Chief of Staff of the largest joint-service operation in south-east Asia, occupying the Cocos Islands off Java preliminary to the invasion of Singapore. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Wing Commander Martin moved to Far East Air Force Headquarters in Singapore, as staff officer in charge of Maritime Operations in South East Asia covering an area from India to Japan.
This was not entirely surprising, as Derek Martin had gained a tremendous amount of experience, having flown with several flying boat squadrons. First of all, after his flying boat training at Calshot he had been posted to 228 Squadron at Pembroke Dock. Then in August 1940 he had joined No.10 (Royal Australian Air Force) Squadron where numerous incidents had occurred. Then in December 1940 No.10 Squadron began to receive a sufficient number of Australian Pilots so Derek Martin was posted to No.210 Squadron based at Oban.
It was there that Derek Martin joined the exclusive Guinea Pig Club whose present President is His Royal Highness, The Prince Philip, KG. The strength of the club became evident after the war when resettlement became a big problem. The Guinea Pigs had all been through terrible experiences borne under the stimulus of war and the optimism of youth. When the war was over "It's Tommy this, and Tommy that, and Tommy go away" as Kipling noticed many years ago.
Remarking on the amazing resilience of Derek Martin, Neale Adams in the ‘Royal Air Force NEWS’ (20/11/09) states “There are people who makes things happen, those who watch things happen and those who just wonder what happened.” Neale Adams had no hesitation in placing Derek Martin in the former category. Little wonder, for Wing Commander Martin during a period at the Air Ministry became co-founder of the RAF Gliding Club. He then went on later to fly Meteors as Station Commander at RAF Wymeswold.
Following the end of his flying career, Wing Commander Martin entered yet another field of aviation expertise by qualifying as an electronics specialist at the RAF Technical College, Debden. Thus equipped, he took up the appointment of Signals Command Intelligence Officer during the Cold War. He went on later to accept an appointment with the Inspectorate of Radio Services.
On being posted to No.210 Squadron as a young Flying Boat Captain, Derek Martin had been quick to realize the value of Oban as a Flying Boat Base. Although situated in a sheltered bay protected by Kerrera Island, it was also ideally placed for ready access to the Atlantic war zone. By the same token it was a welcome haven on returning from long, exhausting flights during the Battle of the Atlantic. The residents of Oban were proud of their association with the Sunderland Flying Boat; this feeling was reciprocated by Wing Commander Martin. He returned in 1998 at the age of 78 years, to unveil the Memorial to those who had served at the Oban Flying Boat Base during the Second World War.
Wing Commander Martin remained in the service of the Royal Air force until 1973. Since then he has followed a very active life taking up several posts within the community. One of those being a government appointed post as a member of the Thames Water Board. This enabled him arrange for a Sunderland Flying Boat (ML814) to land on the Thames on 6th August 1982 and moor near Tower Bridge for about two months before it was flown to USA to join the collection of Mr Kermit Weeks.
The amazing fortitude and spirit of the members of the Club may be illustrated when looking at even the first two verses of the ‘Guinea Pig Anthem’ which read:
We are McIndoe’s army,
We are his Guinea Pigs,
With dermatomes and pedicles,
Glass eyes, false teeth and wigs.
And when we get our discharge,
We’ll shout with all our might:
‘Per ardua ad astra’
We’d rather drink than fight.
John Hunter runs the gas works,
Ross Tilley wields the knife,
And if they are not careful,
They’ll have your flaming life.
So, Guinea Pigs, stand ready
For all your surgeon’s calls:
And if their hands aren’t steady,
They’ll whip off both your ears.
Of all the long list of posts in the community taken up since retirement, probably closest to Derek Martin’s heart is being Patron of the Pembroke Dock Sunderland Trust. Sunderland T9044 sank in 65 feet of water near Pembroke Dock during a storm in November 1940. This Sunderland is the sole surviving Mk 1 version and one which Derek Martin had flown all those years ago. The Sunderland Trust aims to raise this aircraft as it may possibly be in relatively good condition having been preserved in mud and sediment. Raising and restoring the Flying Boat would provide a valued and constant reminder that winning the Battle of the Atlantic was an essential prerequisite leading to the final eventual victory for the Free Allied Nations during the Second World War.
There are 45 Guinea Pig Club members left in England and all together 70 left in the world. Derek Martin has travelled to Canada to meet Guinea Pigs there as well. The club will eventually disband when the number of members falls below 50. Wing Commander Martin is the final surviving founder member of about twelve when the club was originally organised in 1941.
Note: Unless otherwise specifically stated within the text, much of the information in the above article is published by kind permission of Wing Commander Derek Martin, OBE, MID, BSc. author of “The Webfooted Guinea Pig” (2000).