Tag Archives: J. B. Austin

F/Lt John Austin

Wednesday, 11 June 1941

Operation OUTHAULLE

Almost as soon as W/Cdr Knowles’s Whitley leaves the English coast it runs into thick cloud. It is only a few nights after Full Moon, so it is possible to fly at 1,0000 feet under 10/10ths cloud and still see. Enough, it seems, to identify Tours, but as they fly south the weather deteriorates; they are now flying under two thick layers of cloud at 1,200 feet. In the gloom they cannot identify their next pinpoint, somewhere between Chateauroux and Montluçon, so Knowles abandons the operation.

There’s no longer any point in flying low, so they attempt to climb into clear air. Shortly before 03.00 they encounter heavy icing and the port engine cuts. With the other engine running roughly they descend to 4,000 feet, at which the port engine picks up and runs normally. They head back towards England, obtaining a QDM (homing bearing obtained by W/T) from Tangmere. From there they fly back to Newmarket, where they land at about 05.30.

Several sources attest to OUTHAULLE as the operation intended to deliver Pierre Vandermies to the Zéro intelligence group in Belgium, notably Emmanuel Debruyne. The peculiar spelling of the operation comes from Knowles’s report; Knowles is not of a nautical disposition.

Operation FITZROY

F/Lt Jackson and his crew take off at 22.34. (The Ops Officer’s log records 22.45, the difference probably due to Jackson taking his timings from engine-start.) On the first leg to Abingdon they find that the Met. winds are from the opposite direction to the forecast. They climb to 6,500 feet to cross the Channel above thick cloud, but cross the French coast above Le Havre, which has a heavy concentration of searchlights. Flying south, they find Tours at 01.19 but, after finding no improvement in the weather, and knowing a front was approaching, they abandon the operation. The experience of S/Ldr Knowles on OUTHAULLE points to the wisdom of Jackson’s decision.

On the return leg they drop pigeons and leaflets just east of Le Havre, but are held over Newmarket for 48 minutes; Stradishall’s 214 Sqn was operating that night, and several land out at Newmarket. The poor weather has affected bombing operations; the returning bombers take priority.

Operation AUTOGYRO C

The purpose of this operation is to drop two SOE ‘F’ Section agents near Mortaine, in Brittany, to work for the AUTOGYRO circuit. The two agents are Norman Burley and Ernest Bernard.

Sgt Austin and his crew cross the coast near Littlehampton, hoping to make landfall at Isigny. Cloud and rain builds up, so that by the time they are due to reach the French coast it is invisible. On ETA Isigny they change course southwards for Avranches, flying at 6,000 ft. On ETA Avranches they drop to 2,500 ft and set course eastwards for Mortaine. On ETA Mortaine, and still unable to see anything, they start a box search at 3,000 ft. They abandon the attempt and return, dropping pigeons between St Sever and Vire on the way. They land at Newmarket after passing Tangmere and Abingdon.

Sources

OUTHAULLE

TNA AIR20/8334, Encl. 24A
Debruyne, LGSEB, p. 146

FITZROY

TNA AIR20/8334, Encl. 22A

AUTOGYRO C

TNA AIR20/8334, Encl. 26A

Wednesday, 21 May 1941

RAF Ringway

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.

Saturday, 27 July 1940

RAF Abingdon

Sergeant John Austin starts flying the Whitley at No. 10 OTU, Abingdon. He starts on the Whitley III, but on August 13 he will progress to the Whitley V. On 10 September he will pass out from No. 10 OTU, and is posted to No. 51 Squadron at Dishforth. Two nights later he will fly his first bomber operation, to Bremen as 2nd pilot — in at the deep end.

Wednesday, 10 July 1940

The Battle of Britain is deemed to have been started on July 10 with large-scale attacks on convoys in the English Channel. There had been smaller-scale convoy attacks before, but historians will later require the Battle of Britain to have a neat beginning and end.

English Channel, ten miles south of Lydd

At about 2.30 p.m., John Coghlan is in ‘A’ Flight — it’s not clear whether he is leading the Flight — when they encounter about 50 enemy aircraft above the Dover Straits, a mix of Do217s, He111s, Me109s and Me110s. Coghlan’s narrative is worth reading verbatim:

“I sighted a number of bombers, Do.215 and He 111’s and a fighter escort of Me 110 and 109’s. The bombers were attackin a convoy. Before attack commenced the Me 110’s formed a large circle at 10,000 feet and the me 109 formed a similar circle at 14,000 ft. I attacked one of the Me 110’s from 1000 ft above, but some Me 109’s came down, and after a short dog fight I eluded them. I then again attacked one of the Me 110’s which had by now broken up. I saw bullets burst on fuselage and wing between pilot and rear gunner and the port engine burst into flames, and the e/a broke away downwards and to the right. I was then attacked by a number of the Me 109’s and I became aware of their presence behind me by red cannon shots over my port wing. I pulled up and throttled back and they shot underneath me and I then dived down on two of them and got a good three second burst in on each, from 50 to 30 yards range. I saw my bullets, in each case, enter the fuselage in front of the pilot. I was then attacked head on by a Me 109. After this, all the Me 109’s had disappeared and I feel certain that the engines of the two Me 109’s attacked by me must have been severely damaged. I found that I could better out-manoeuvre the Me 109’s and 110’s with 5 to 10 degrees of flap lowered. The loss of speed to my Hurricane was not appreciable Engine revs were 28.00 on my rotol airscrew.”

TNA AIR 50 / 22
Coghlan claims one Me110 (confirmed) and two Me109s damaged.

No. 2 Service Flying Training School (SFTS), RAF Brize Norton

Sergeant John Austin takes up Airspeed Oxford No. 1932 for a 40-minute flight, with Sgt Blair as crew, for Exercise No. 10 – ‘Air to Air’. Later his logbook is marked, his training is complete, and he is signed out of No. 2 SFTS with an ‘Average’ Rating. (For readers used to present-day school assessment gradings, an RAF pilot’s rating of ‘Average’ was a solid pass. ‘Above the average’ was rare, and ‘Exceptional’ really was.)

Thursday, 23 May 1940

RAF Brize Norton

John Austin is awarded his pilot’s badge, his ‘wings’. Anticipating the previous war’s slaughter being repeated and, as he told me, ‘wanting some choice in the matter’, John joined the RAF shortly before the war. He started his flying training in June 1939. He is tall, possibly too tall for a Hurricane cockpit, and certainly too tall for a Spitfire. Since the end of March 1940 he has been at No. 2 Flying Training School, learning to fly the Airspeed Oxford, an advanced twin-engined training aircraft.

Sergeant Austin will continue his training on the Oxford before being posted to an Operational Training Unit. There he will complete his pilot training on larger twin-engined aircraft before being posted to an operational squadron. The pilot-training process will have taken about two years.