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.
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.