The Flight now has only one operational Whitley, the long-range Z6473, but there is no operational crew to fly it. F/O Hockey is still not fit to fly. Fortunately it is the start of the ‘dark’ period. S/Ldr Knowles orders F/Lt Oettle to return to the mainland and base by boat train.
S/Ldr Knowles visits W/Cdr Geddes at No. 2 Sqn, to ask for the loan of another Lysander pilot, F/O Baker having been captured at Namur. F/Lt Gordon Scotter joins 419 Flight. Apparently he had been offered the job in November-December, but had turned it down.
Knowles’s trip to Sumburgh is cancelled just after 9 a.m., and at 1135 Knowles asks Ops to let the Earl of Bandon know that SAVANNA is ‘temporarily suspended’, replaced by a 9.5-hour operation by 419 Flight, taking off at between 8 and 9 p.m. This is Operation BENJAMIN, an SOE-sponsored operation to insert a Czech intelligence agent into Bohemia. Though an intelligence operation, it is aimed at inserting a secure wireless link independent from Czech Intelligence chief Moravec’s own organisation. It has been backed by Brigadier Gubbins, SOE’s Operations Director.
At 1350 Ops is told of an alternative operation, taking off at about midnight and lasting 5 hours – ‘Brussels way’. SIS has pulled rank: it insists that 419 Flight fly the SIS operation to insert a Belgian agent, Gaston Poplimon. With only one aircraft available, SIS insists on its operation taking priority. BENJAMIN is cancelled.
Gubbins is furious. This operation has been several months in the planning. Moreover the nights are getting shorter; soon it will not be possible to fly an agent to Eastern Europe and return to the safety of the North Sea before daybreak. It has the effect of crystallising SOE’s resentment at being considered by SIS as a poor relation, rather than the ‘fourth arm’ that Hugh Dalton believed it should be.
At 1047 S/Ldr Knowles advises the Ops Room that 419 Flight will not operate tonight. At 1220 S/Ldr Knowles says that 419 Flight may operate tonight, but not before midnight, a short trip of approximately five hours. (Bear in mind that the only 419 Flight crew available has just returned from an 11-hour operation.) An hour later 3 Group cancels all operations for tonight, and at 1400 this is reinforced by a request to inform S/Ldr Knowles that all Groups in Bomber Command are standing down tonight. This appears to be due to a forecast of extreme weather.
At 1420 Operation SAVANNA is cancelled. At 1650 3 Group enquires if 419 Flight are operating & in what direction; they point out that the wind-strength will be dangerous for baling out if that should be necessary, a coded hint about parachute operations. (Baling out in emergency is not a problem; the landing is.) At 1820 S/Ldr Knowles provides sortie info for 419 Flight subject to a decision at 1900. At 1948 the trip is cancelled.
S/Ldr Knowles states his intention to fly to Sumburgh in T4264 the following morning, leaving Stradishall at 1000 on the 17th & staying the night at Sumburgh, doubtless to assess the situation with Oettle and his damaged Whitley.
At 1110 Keast informs the Ops Office that Operation SAVANNA is cancelled for today.
At 1315 3 Group agrees that Wing Commander Mulholland should go tonight with 419 Flight. The Flight Commander is to go over to 3 Group at Exning (just outside Newmarket) to explain why he is unable to make up his crews.
The Flight is always operating on a shoestring, with barely two crews for two aircraft. One of the pilots on the Flight’s strength, F/O Ron Hockey, is recovering from ‘exhaustion’ and is still non-operational. Jack Oettle is with the other Whitley and its crew at Dishforth, waiting to operate. Keast has to scrounge a Second Pilot in order to carry out an operation tonight.
Wing Commander Mulholland, DFC, has recently completed a tour with 115 Squadron at Marham, another 3 Group Wellington squadron. A 32-year-old Australian who flew with Imperial Airways before the war, Mulholland was recently awarded the DFC for a raid in January, in which he made repeated runs over the Kiel Canal in the face of heavy flak before dropping his bombs. He has been given command of 3 Group’s Training Flight.
At 1357 F/Lt Keast informs the Ops Office that a Whitley is going up to drop containers in 10 mins time.
At 1510 Dishforth calls to ask if a/c can operate tomorrow. Presumably this means Jack Oettle. Dishforth is given the OK for the 11th only: Keast is informed.