Category Archives: Operations

Saturday, 12 October 1940

RAF Stradishall

The operation mounted this night incorporates several ‘firsts’: the first Special Duties operation from Stradishall and the first under Bomber Command control; the first operation for O’Neill’s replacement F/Lt Frank Keast  who flies as Second Pilot to F/O Jack Oettle; and the first agents parachuted into Nazi-occupied Belgium. This is also the first insertion of a pair of agents as organiser and wireless-operator, which becomes a standard practice.

P5029 has arrived at Stradishall at 11.35 that morning, to replace the Flight’s newer Whitley destroyed by P/O Greenhill the previous day.  Oettle and Keast take off in P5029 at 22.23. Sgts Bernard and Davies are back on duty despite their crash the previous day. They land back at 0255. Keast’s logbook says the trip took 4 hours 40 minutes, which is close enough. (Frequently there are differences between take-off and landing times as recorded by the Watch Office and the Ops Officer. Logbook times tend to be longer than either, as pilots record flight from first taxi to engines off, which the Watch office doesn’t see.)

Constant Martiny and Armand Desnerck

The agents are dropped in the bois Saint-Jean, between the villages of La Roche and Houffalise, some way north of Bastogne. The agents are Constant Martiny and Armand Desnerk, his wireless-operator. Martiny is 52, and breaks his ankle on landing. (The Belgian historian Emmanuel Debruyne says that they didn’t receive any parachute training.) Martiny has been a clerk in the Ministry of Aviation. His contact in Belgium is Joseph Daumerie, a pilot from the Great War, and their circuit Daumerie-Martiny gains some 300 agents recruited locally. Martiny is captured on 13 May 1941, and is deported to Germany. Tried in Berlin, he is sentenced go death, and he is executed on 26 August 1942. There is a memorial near the Chateau de bois Saint-Jean, presumably near where he landed.

Thursday, 10 October 1940

RAF Tangmere

Tonight the weather is better: fine and clear. Take-off is earlier, at 21.45 according to Farley, again flying as Second Pilot to F/O Oettle. The crew is probably the same as the night before. So is the Whitley.

This time there is no mist over the Fontainebleau forest. The target is found easily and Schneidau is dropped successfully, The ‘A’ type harness has a container which sits between his head and the canopy. In the container is a rucksack with two pigeons inside, immobilised by socks placed over their bodies, their heads poking out from holes cut in the toes. The ‘A’ type harness is an adapted cargo parachute with 11-foot strops beneath to carry the agent. It cannot be steered by the parachutist.

The Whitley and its crew return to Tangmere, landing at 04.05.

Wednesday, 9 October 1940

RAF Tangmere

With the new Moon period, a fresh attempt is made to parachute Philip Schneidau into the Bourron-Marlotte sand-quarry. Take-off is scheduled for 23.00.

The Flight is using its new Whitley, P5025, which has arrived on the 6th. The revised establishment for 419 Flight is for two Lysanders plus two in reserve, and one Whitley with another in reserve. (The Flight will actually have only three Lysanders, because the one lost on 17 August has not been officially declared lost; R2625 will remain on 138 Squadron’s books for several months until it is quietly dropped.) There is only one Whitley crew: P/O Jack Oettle, with F/Lt Farley as 2nd Pilot. Sergeants David Bernard and Dai Davies are almost certainly aboard as Wireless Operator and Rear Gunner, and the navigator will be identified by Hugh Verity only as ‘Jacky’ Martin. S/Ldr Ross Shore flies as a ‘passenger’, in his role as coach to Philip Schneidau.

They take off at 2300 hours, and land back at Tangmere seven hours later, foiled yet again by bad weather.

Saturday, 21 September 1940

Tangmere — Fontainebleau, France

Probably the third attempt to parachute Philip Schneidau: F/O Jack Oettle makes his debut in 419 Flight as Whitley P5029’s skipper. F/Lt Farley is his Second Pilot, with Sergeants Bernard and Davis as Wireless Operator & Air Gunner, and S/Ldr Ross Shore as Despatcher. Other crew remain unidentified.

Friday, 20 September 1940

RAF Tangmere

The second attempt to drop Philip Schneidau is probably made on the night of 20-21 September. F/Lt Walter Farley, who flew as Second Pilot on the first attempt, appears to be the skipper this time. He does not record the Second Pilot in his logbook. S/Ldr Ross Shore and Sergeants Davis and Bernard are all in Farley’s crew. A crossed-out entry in Farley’s logbook lists Sgt Cameron in the crew; he would become the Flight’s first Despatcher, but at the time he was a corporal. (Farley’s logbook for this period appears to have been filled in several months later.)

Farley’s logbook records the sortie as lasting 3 hours 55 minutes. Ross Shore’s logbook records a sortie lasting 8 hours with Farley as skipper. It is not stated where this sortie was mounted from, but it was probably from Tangmere.