Stradishall
At 1200 F/Lt Keast informs W/Cdr Cameron (2 Group) that Operation SAVANNA has been cancelled for tonight.
At 1210 F/Lt Keast states that two aircraft will be operating tonight, but at 1905 the operations are cancelled.
Category Archives: Operations
Friday, 7 February 1941
Stradishall
At 1015 the Ops officer asks S/Ldr Knowles about 419 Flight and Blenheim operations. Operation SAVANNA has been planned so that a squadron of Blenheims from No. 2 Group, No. 107 Sqn, will bomb the port of Vannes as diversionary cover while 419 Flight drop the SOE/Free-French assassination team in the countryside nearby. The Blenheims will operate from Newmarket, presumably to aid coordination. The Ops Officer informs 3 Group that the operation is off.
Stradishall – ‘Brussels’
At 1105 the Station Commander states that two 419 Flight operations may be flown tonight, one of five hours’ duration, the other of six; weather permitting. (Stradishall has only one runway operational.)
At 0011 an unidentified Whitley takes off for Belgium, but the operation is abandoned early, presumably due to poor weather; the Whitley lands back at Stradishall at 0335. Keast’s logbook shows no record of such a flight, so this sortie was probably flown by Jack Oettle and his crew.
Friday, 17 January 1941
Stradishall
The Flight attempts to fly two Whitley operations this night, but Oettle’s (a/c ‘B’, Whitley P5029) develops engine trouble before takeoff. The other Whitley (a/c ‘A’) is delayed with similar problems until 02.55 when F/Lt Keast takes off in Whitley T4264. An unusual feature of this operation is that S/Ldr Knowles, whose role is non-operational, flies as Keast’s ‘Second Dickey’, with F/O Baker along as ‘Front Gunner’ to gain navigational experience; he is on loan from No. II(AC) Squadron. The makeup of Oettle’s crew remains unknown.
Keast and Knowles run into cloud at Selsey Bill and climb above it. On ETA they descend near Rouen, to find the Seine valley covered in fog.
They return, landing at Stradishall at 0905. If this seems late, in October 1940 UK clocks have been kept at British Summer Time (GMT +1) over the winter. Sunrise at the French coast won’t have been until about 0830 (UK time), about an hour after the Whitley has left the area.
Thursday, 16 January 1941
Stradishall – Non-occupied zone (ZNO), France
Oettle and Keast fly a 7 hour 10 minute sortie to the non-occupied Zone of France, with Oettle as Captain. Keast characteristically dates the operation to the 16th. Take-off is recorded by the Watch Office at approximately 10.20, and they land at 05.25 the following morning. (Keast will have recorded it from taxi out to engines off, whereas the Watch Office log will have noted its observation times from take-off to landing. This would account for the difference.)
This operation parachutes the SIS agent Michel Charles Joseph COULOMB into the Chateauroux area in the French Unoccupied Zone. A French citizen, he has been recruited the previous June by Commander Dunderdale’s A.4 section, which maintains links with Vichy intelligence. Coulomb has already completed at least one mission, having been landed by fishing boat in August 1940 and extracted in October. On 23 October 1940 he is commissioned into the Intelligence Corps as 2nd Lieutenant Michael James CARTWRIGHT (151291). His circuit has a strong aviation flavour and purpose, with links to several pre-war French aviation figures, including the aircraft designer Maurice DELANNE. At some unknown date in late 1940, his circuit has joined up with a group run by Robert IVERNEL, a subset of the Vichy French circuit ‘SR Air’.
Monday, 13 January 1941
Stradishall – Marham
At 17.20 Aircraft ‘X’ of 419 Flight takes off for RAF Marham in preparation for an operation that is cancelled at 17.57. There is no corresponding entry in Keast’s logbook, but the summary that he writes on 15 February includes it as a cancelled operation to Brussels.
Sources
Stradishall Ops Officers’ log TNA AIR 14 / 2527
TNA AIR 20 / 8334, Encl. 3A