The May moon-period has ended on the 18th. Today, Sgt John Austin and his new crew fly Whitley Z6473 to Ringway to undergo a parachute-dropping course. Sgt Austin had flown with F/Lts Jackson and Murphy on operation AUTOGYRO B to France on 13 May. At Ringway he and his mainly NCO crew will learn how to drop agents by the book, probably the first SD crew to have been on a structured course.
F/O Hockey takes up some agents over Stradishall for parachute practice; a French agent’s parachute doesn’t open and he is killed. On a bomber base people don’t voluntarily jump out of aeroplanes, and the attention this accident generates is unwelcome. There is likely to have been some difficulty over the very public death of the agent; he will have had a false identity, and an inquest, necessarily public by law, would jeopardise security.
At 0915 S/Ldr Knowles requests permission to fly Whitley ‘Z’ Z6473 to Sumburgh via Finningley, Catterick, Grangemouth, Perth, Diss, Lossiemouth, Helmsdall, Thurso, Ross Head, Sumbro – 1430 hrs. Taking off 0945 hrs. The sortie information is passed to 3 Group; one assumes he is flying up to see what progress has been made with the Flight’s stranded Whitley P5029.
F/O Ron Hockey flies with P/O Willson and crew to Abingdon, then on to Ringway, in Whitley T4165. Stradishall learns that he has been given the incorrect colours of the day. The Ops Officers’ log records:
1605: Endeavoured to contact F/O Hockey in 1419 Flight Whitley, flying to Abingdon and thence to Ringway to inform him in possession of wrong colours & letters of day. Unable to do so having left Abingdon. Requested Sigs to contact Whitley but Sigs not in wireless touch.
This could easily have led to a tragic accident if he had been intercepted by a trigger-happy fighter-pilot. (See Oettle’s own experience the previous 5 August.)
P/O Ron Hockey flies Whitley T4165 back from White Waltham. This is his first flight in a Whitley as P1.
F/Lt W R Farley is gazetted with the DFC.