Library Reference Number: 227
Flying With The Australians
My first posting after flying boat training at Calshot was to No.228 Squadron at Pembroke Dock, south Wales. I arrived there in April 1940 at the tender age of 19 and by the middle of the month was on an operational sortie, escorting Convoy HGF 25B with Flight Lieutenant Bevan Joan as Captain. This was a relatively short trip - only 10 hours. The next day I was flying with Flight Lieutenant Gordon on a 91/2 hour sortie No. 178
Now I am trying to recall events sixty years ago I find that my flying log book has very little information about the operational sorties flown. In those days it was strictly forbidden to keep any sort of diary, and most of my entries contain information which must have been relevant at the time but which is now meaningless. For example on 17th April 1940 my logbook entry shows "c/v HGF 25B sortie 177" while the entry for the 18th April shows only "sortie 178". Later the entries are even less informative confined simply to 'convoy escort' which might have been any convoy anywhere. Reading other pilots' reminiscences I sometimes wonder whether I was right to follow the instructions not to keep any records or diaries.
During my short time with No.228 Squadron the first DFC of the war was won by the pilot who landed near the torpedoed ship Kensington Court and picked up survivors. Landing in the open sea was strictly forbidden later because the risk of losing precious aircraft and aircrew was too great. In 1940, after years of disarmament, we were very short of everything.
I was only with 228 Squadron for a very short time because Headquarters No.15 Group wanted a qualified navigator to work shifts in the joint operations room at Mount Wise. This was a joint RAF-Navy control room at Plymouth from which the Battle of the Southwest Approaches was controlled.
The control rooms of Fighter Command are well-known to the public because of media attention, but little or no attention has been given to the control of the Maritime battle. There were control centres at Plymouth, Chatham and Liverpool. Here convoy movements were plotted and related to U-boat activity. Torpedoed ships were plotted where details were known and RAF maritime aircraft were despatched to escort convoys to and from the UK and to search for U-boats.
Churchill's History of the Second World War recorded that Britain lost over 11,000,000 tons of shipping, mostly in the Atlantic. As I have recorded previously, Churchill's view was that "The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the war" "I was even more anxious about this battle than I had been about the glorious air fight called the Battle of Britain."
Headquarters No. 15 Group was rather dull for a 19 year old. The only interesting event I can recall was when one day I was walking through the docks at Plymouth and passed through a hive of activity. Wounded men were being unloaded from the ship alongside, and being looked after by a host of kind helpers from various voluntary bodies such as the Salvation Army, Womens Voluntary Service and similar organisations. I asked where the wounded were from and was told 'The Lancastria has been sunk during the evacuation (of France)' Only in later years was the tragedy made public and I realised that I had actually been present when the survivors were being landed at Plymouth.
In August 1940 I was glad to be posted to No. 10 (Royal Australian Air Force) Squadron. This Squadron had a unique history. Before the war started, the Australian government had decided to form a squadron of Sunderland Flying Boats for use in the Pacific. They formed a new squadron from their best personnel and sent them to England to collect the new Sunderlands from the Shorts Bros factory at Rochester. These aircraft were bought and paid for by the Australian government and were to be flown to Australia as a Squadron.
However, before they could be flown to Australia the war started. The Australian government decided that the complete Squadron should remain in the UK and operate under the command of the Royal Air Force. No. 10 Squadron was therefore unique: Unlike other squadrons which carried a territorial title, No. 10 was owned and manned by Australians. After a few months of operations casualties created vacancies amongst the speciallyselected Australians and there were no Australians to replace them. They needed a new pilot, so I was posted to the squadron - the first English pilot in a wholly Australian squadron.
I found the Australians wonderful people to introduce me to the war. By now I was just 20 and, after a few introductory flights (my logbook records familiar names such as Podger, Thurston, Frost. Allitt, Garing and Dibbs) I was crewed up with Flight Lieutenant Dick Cohen. Dick was Captain of P.9602 with Hodgkinson and me as second pilots.
Our first trip together was on 19th August 1940 when we carried out a Security Patrol in the Bay of Biscay of 131/2 hours, 9 by day, 41/2 by night. I noted that I carried out 2 hours cloud flying on that trip. Unfortunately, as I have described before, I have no record of what the patrol was all about.
A flying boat crew varied according to the requirements of the mission and the availability of crew members. Usually the crew would comprise the Captain, first pilot, second pilot or second Navigator, First Navigator, two Wireless Operators who were also trained in air gunnery (WOP/AG), one Wireless Electrical Mechanic (WEM/ AG) who was trained to service and repair the wireless equipment, two Flight Engineers (FE JAG) one Rigger who was available for repairs to the hull, was also trained as an air gunner and usually did the cooking. If we were going into the Bay of Biscay where enemy fighters were around we might take an additional two air gunners. Over the Atlantic we might take two of any trade for lookout purposes as we scanned the wide ocean.
Operational trips (sorties) followed a regular pattern wherever we were. The Captain and the Navigator would go to the Station Operations Room to be briefed on the task, given any particular points to look out for and also a forecast of the weather. This latter was very important. In wartime the weather was a state Secret. Our weather usually comes in from the west, from the Atlantic. By knowing the weather over the Atlantic one can get a good idea of what is to come in the UK. Equally, the enemy wanted to know what the weather was in the UK because they would be getting the same weather within the next few days. Weather is vital for operations in the air and also on the ground.
While the Captain and the Navigator were being briefed, the second pilot and the rest of the crew would go aboard the aircraft and prepare it for flight. It would already have been refuelled and taken on depth charges and ammunition. Now the mooring would be 'shortened up' ready for slipping when the engines were started. The Captain would come aboard and brief the crew on the forthcoming sortie, so everyone knew where they were going and what they would be doing. When all was ready, the Captain started the engines, slipped the moorings and taxied to the take-off area.
The flying boat base at Plymouth was at Mountbatten and the aircraft were moored in an area known as the Cattewater. We would taxy out into Plymouth Sound for take-offs knowing that our aircraft were the successors to the ships of war of olden days. On 23rd August 1940 Flight Lieutenant Cohen and crew were detailed to carry out an anti-submarine patrol which ended at Oban, in Scotland. I remember flying along the west coast of the Mull of Kintyre and thinking how glorious were the colours of the Scottish Highlands.
I remember that Dick and I were lodged in the best hotel in Oban - I think it must have been the Alexandra. Unfortunately we had very ordinary beds in what had been the hotel nursery. However, we did better than the crew who slept in the hotel laundry. In 1940 the war had not really touched Scotland there was a feeling of unreality sometimes when comparing conditions in the Highlands with conditions in the south of England.
Flying out of Oban we carried out anti-submarine patrols on 26th and 28th August (the latter being 121/2 hours, landing at night). The pressure under which we were working can perhaps be judged by the fact that we landed after 121/2 hours and on 29th August were off again to escort convoy HX 66A - a trip of 111/2 hours.
Oban was the main air base from which the Battle of the Atlantic was fought in the early days of the war. The only aircraft with sufficient range to reach mid-Atlantic was the Sunderland flying boat and Oban provided sheltered water from which to operate. Unfortunately it also had many disadvantages as an operational base.
Perhaps the worst problem was the weather. The west coast of Scotland is notorious for bad weather (look at your television weather charts and see the cloud and rain which is often obscuring the Hebrides). We were forbidden to use radio, particularly approaching or leaving base for this would have given an indication of air activity and would warn U-boats of the impending arrival of an air escort for the convoy which the U-boats were tracking. There was no airborne radar in those days, and no ground radar or radio aids. This, coupled with a total black out, made the return to base particularly hazardous at night.
Landing a flying boat at night was not easy. It was at the time the largest operational aircraft in the world. Weighing about 25 tons and approaching the flarepath at nearly 100 miles per hour required special skills. The flarepath was primitive. At the downwind end would be a high-speed rescue launch which carried the officer controlling the flarepath. (All the pilots took their turn as flarepath officer in addition to their operational flying and other duties) About 600 yards upwind of the control boat would be a dinghy with a battery-powered light on the masthead. This dinghy would be manned by an airman (often a very cold and wet airman) whose sole duty was to switch the light on or off when the control boat ordered. About 600 yards further upwind there would be a similar dinghy with an equally cold and wet airman waiting to operate the switch.
The whole assembly would maintain total darkness until the aircraft appeared overhead. When the Captain reckoned that he was overhead he would fire a Verey Signal with the recognition 'Colours of the day' (which changed daily). If the flarepath control officer was satisfied of the identity of the aircraft, he would order the lights to be switched on. The Captain, flying at about 1,000 feet, would then see three lights on a sea of darkness, indicating the wind direction in which he had to land. The lights were about 600 yards apart. He would then line up the aircraft with the flarepath and make an approach aiming to touch down between the first and second lights which would allow the aircraft to settled in the water before reaching the third light. If the weather-was bad (as it often was) it would take two or three or four approaches before the Captain considered that he was in a suitable position to land.
That would be the scene in good conditions. Unfortunately, on most nights the weather was poor with low cloud or rain or snow, or perhaps flat calm or fog. It is not difficult to imagine the strain of flying in total darkness, returning from a trip of perhaps 12 or 13 hours, hoping to avoid the hills and mountains during the approach to the UK from the Atlantic, and then be faced with the problem of getting the aircraft down under such rudimentary conditions. I still sometimes recall those conditions, particularly when watching the weather charts on the television.
Life continued in much the same way. Long and frequent trips, stressful flying conditions, thousands of square miles of ocean with little to see. However, the ships Captains appreciated our efforts because U-boats were reluctant to attack a convoy when the air escort was around. For that reason we would make every effort to reach the convoys, even in appalling weather. Every time we went out we would see patches of oil and flotsam on the water, each showing where a ship had been torpedoed and sunk. One Navigator even suggested that we could gauge our position by reference to the wreckage on the sea. We often received letters of thanks from the ships for our work in protecting the convoys. These were always greatly appreciated because they came from those whom knew the conditions under which we operated and who also faced similar odds. The letters were filed in our 'Cake' file. The name came from typical understatement. When they were read out someone would say 'it was a piece of cake' (air force slang for having done a very difficult job successfully) so it was natural that the appreciative letters should be filed in the 'cake' file.
On 1st September 1940 we escorted the cruiser Dorsetshire with a secret convoy - a trip of more than 12 hours. The next day we escorted convoy OB 206 in very bad weather, arriving back at base later than expected after another 12 hour trip. Dick Cohen made several attempts to get in through bad weather but after the third attempt put the aircraft down even though we were well past the second flarepath boat, and approaching the third and final boat. Having flown for 24 hours out of the past 36 hours it was understandable that we were all anxious to get down.
Unfortunately we did not know that the flarepath had been cruising slowly ahead for the past two hours (we were later than expected). It was essential for the boats to move in order to maintain the line and distance. On this dark night, neither we nor the flarepath boats knew that the third boat was not very close to Lismore Island. We touched down late, after the second boat, and ran past the third boat into the darkness at perhaps 80 miles per hour straight into Lismore Island.
The nose of the aircraft hit the cliffs. I was thrown onto the aircraft dashboard fortunately with nothing worse than a strained thumb, and the aircraft began to settle back into the water. The dinghy was launched from the rear door and inflated as the aircraft began to sink and we all scrambled in. Thinking that we had got away very lightly we were brought back to reality by the Navigator, whose job it was to make the depth charges safe before landing. This was done by turning the detonator clockwise or anti clockwise before landing - I forget which. This made the depth charges 'safe.' If he had turned the detonators the wrong way, the depth charges would go off as soon as they sank below the water and we would all be blown up.
The only way to find out was to return to the sinking aircraft and check the detonators. The Navigator scrambled into the aircraft and I followed holding a torch. We felt down into the bomb bay (which was now under water) and checked each detonator. Fortunately he had turned them the correct way otherwise perhaps I would not be writing this. Two days later we were on patrol again, this time escorting convoy OB 208. The weather was still very bad and we returned after only 51/2 hours.
Life on the Atlantic patrol followed a similar pattern every day. With a range of 12-13 hours the Sunderlands would fly out into the Atlantic for say 5 hours, spend two hours on convoy escort and U-boat hunting, then 5 hours back to base. The nearer the convoy was to England, the longer the aircraft could stay with it. Cornrersely, the further out in the Atlantic, the shorter time we could stay with the convoy.
The Atlantic soon became a striking graveyard of ships. Day after day we would fly over oil slicks or flotsam from sunken ships. We saw ships sink, but could do nothing to help the passengers or crew. On one occasion I remember I spotted a lifeboat at extreme distance - probably 30 miles or so. We flew over towards it and saw that it was full of survivors. They were probably delighted that we had sighted them, but we could not help or even to send a radio signal to base as radio silence was absolute as that would disclose our activity to the enemy. If there was a navy ship nearby we could fly over to it and pass a message by Aldis signalling lamp, but even the navy was reluctant to stop to pick up survivors in case they themselves were torpedoed by the enemy.
From the air point of view, weather was our biggest enemy. Taking off fully loaded with petrol, depth charges, ammunition and stores for a 12 hour trip, the aircraft would climb slowly to only a few hundred feet. We would fly along at 300 - 500 feet until some of the fuel was burned up and the lightened aircraft could climb to 1,000 or 1,500 feet at which the patrol was carried out. Some days we could not reach 1,000 feet because of low cloud and rain or snow, so we would perhaps carry out the entire 12 hour patrol at about 200 - 300 feet - a very exhausting exercise considering that the pilot had to fly the aircraft by hand the whole time (there were no automatic pilots). It is not surprising that many crashes occurred on return to base, particularly at night when the pilot and crew were tired and the weather bad.
On 18th September Dick Cohen and I flew from Oban to Mountbatten where we started on security patrols in the Bay of Biscay. There were usually no convoys to escort in the Bay. We were looking for U-boats in transit between their bases on the French coast and their operations area in the Atlantic. A very good book was written about operations in the Bay from a German point of view.(details at the end of this account).
Although the weather was slightly better, we now had the problem of enemy fighters based in France which sought out the Sunderland patrols. For example, on 1st October we were attacked by four German fighters when returning from a 13 hour patrol down to Finisterre. Dick stood in the astrodome and acted as the battle controller, while I flew the aircraft. Throwing 25 tons around in the air in combat is very wearying but we were lucky and got away with it. We were rewarded with a front page piece in the now- defunct Daily Sketch - the Australians very wisely had excellent in-house publicity and their exploits were frequently reported for consumption back home in Australia. Naturally, the fact that the aircraft was flown by an English pilot was not mentioned.
The next day I was on patrol again, this time with Flight Lieutenant Pierce on a trip of 12 hours. Two days later I was out again with Flight Lieutenant Courtney on a 91/2 hour patrol. This pattern of events was repeated in 11th, 13th, 15th and 17th October until, in 20th October I went to Rochester with Squadron Leader Garing to collect a new aircraft from the factory. This was the time of the Battle of Britain and we stood on the wing of the aircraft lying at moorings on the river Medway and watched the air battles overhead until they had subsided sufficiently for us to take off and fly across southern England to our base at Mountbatten. My photograph of the crew standing on the wing and watching the battle is now in the Kent air museum.
On the way back to base on 21st October we landed half way at Calshot for the night. This was a pleasant interlude to visit the base where I had trained on flying boats six months before. I might have pondered what I had experienced during the previous six months. November 1940 brought some respite from the Bay. On 6th November I went on patrol with Squadron Leader Pearce, this time along the 100 fathom line along the south of Ireland. It was thought that enemy U-boats might be refuelling and replenishing in the area and we hoped to catch them unprepared.
A couple of flights with Barry Lombard and I was back again with the Australian Ivan Podger. On 20/21st December we were looking for two ships reported torpedoed in the area 55N 19W. Nothing was seen in the usual bad Atlantic weather and Oban was closed when we returned, so we landed at Loch Ryan and moored near Stranraer. In the early hours of the morning the only place open was the Police Station so Podger and I were put in the cells and were brought welcome cups of tea in the morning. As it was only a small Police Station there was no room for the crew, so they slept on the night sleeper parked in the rail sidings. When I heard of this I wondered what would have happened if the train had departed for London and left us without a crew. On 22nd December I joined Bill Bailey and on 27th we did 121/2 hours looking for convoy SLS 65, which we could not find due to bad weather. Bill Bailey was later killed in the Bay of Biscay.
Footnote: Flight Lieutenant Dick Cohen after the war became Sir Richard Kingsland, Australian Minister for Returned Servicemen. I was very fortunate to go to war in the company of such a fine man.
Books:
Bloody Biscay - History of V Gruppe, JG 40 (Goss)
Mountbatten - Flying Boat base by Dennis C.Teague ISBN 0901474 Videos:
Coastal Command PAL 625 The Short Sunderland CMO 1003
Das Boot - A German television programme of life on the U-boats.
Published by kind permission of Wing Commander Derek Martin, OBE, MID, BSc. author of "The Webfooted Guinea Pig" (2000).