Tag Archives: Oettle

Albert John Oettle

Tuesday, 28 January 1941

Royal visit to RAF Stradishall

The King and Queen visit RAF Stradishall. Part of the visit’s purpose is to award decorations. One of the recipients of a DFC is to be Sqn Ldr Douglas Bader, who has already earned a DSO for his leadership during the Battle of Britain. A principal organiser of the visit is the King’s pilot and equerry, Wing Commander E.H. Fielden, MVO: in two years’ time ‘Mouse’ Fielden will start to play his leading part in clandestine operations, initially as No. 161 Squadron’s first Commanding Officer, and later as Tempsford’s Station Commander.

The Royal party is scheduled to arrive at midday. The Royal Party is first scheduled to visit Station HQ and the Ops Room. There the King will meet, among others, F/Lt Keast as OC 419 Flight. The King is to be told about the Flight’s activities, and Keast is also instructed to ‘describe Farley’s show’; presumably his unplanned trip to Oban. F/O Jack Oettle is to be awarded the DFC for his earlier bombing operations with No. 51 Squadron.

After an informal lunch there is a parade at 1400 in 419 Flight’s hangar, but with representative personnel from all units based at Stradishall. At 1445 the Royal party is to leave the Station:

‘Road and gateway to be lined with those available, including Army. Spontaneous cheers.’

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’.

Sunday, 12 January 1941

Stradishall – Manhay/Grandmenil, Belgium

This sortie to Belgium drops Jean Lamy, code-named ‘Dewar’, a wireless operator for the ‘Clarence’ circuit.

Whitley P5029 takes off from Stradishall at 20.15 on the 12th. An hour-and-a-half later 3 Group phones to ask Stradishall about the endurance of that particular Whitley ‘X’, and is given the answer “12 hours”. The query is unlikely to have had anything to do with that night’s operation to Belgium, which was well within this Whitley’s endurance. More likely it is related to the plans for a re-run of ADOLPHUS to Poland, or perhaps another long-distance operation. By this time Oettle and Keast are over the North Sea and can’t answer for themselves.

In any case the answer is wrong: P5029 has no additional fuel tanks, which limits its operational radius, though they can be fitted. Operations to Norway or Denmark are possible, but only by setting off from the east coast of Scotland or Yorkshire. Twelve hours would be a generous estimate for a Whitley equipped with the full complement of six additional fuel tanks; the maximum recorded length of a Special Duties Whitley sortie fitted with these tanks is still less than eleven hours.

Lamy is dropped near Manhay, in the Ardennes region, a land of rich farmland valleys closely bordered by wooded hills. P5029 lands at Honington at 00.40 on the 13th after a four-hour trip. Keast records the sortie as flown on the 13th, but Stradishall confirms the sortie as taking place on the night of the 12th-13th.

Lamy sends his first message from Grandmenil, the next hamlet along. According to Emmanuel Debruyne, Lamy makes around 120 transmissions from his parents’ home, his speed and confidence increasing, as does the amount of intelligence he gets back to London. But the Abwehr is developing its own skills, in radio triangulation techniques, so Lamy’s luck is never going to last. On 26 March he is arrested at his set. According to Etienne Verhoeyen he succeeds in short-circuiting his set before the Germans arrive, but his codes and a series of coded messages fall into German hands. Under the threat of reprisals against his family, which knows Walter Dewé and other senior figures in the Belgian intelligence service, Lamy allows himself to transmit under German control. Within three months, overconfidence and a training failure to instil strict W/T discipline in these agents have led to the eradication of two circuits (‘Williams’ and ‘Martiny-Daumerie’), and ‘Clarence’ is rendered impotent.

Friday, 10 January 1941

Stradishall – Châteaumeillant – Operation FITZROY

Oettle and Keast drop Claude Lamirault a little south of Châteaumeillant, Cher. Keast’s target map (a British reproduction of the French pre-war large-scale 1:80,000 series) has survived. It shows the likely drop site on a ridge. Some farm buildings nearby are also indicated in red crayon; Lamirault may have made for these after landing, though it has not been possible to establish a definite connection due to the farm having changed hands since the war.

P/O Baker is also aboard for this operation. As the Flight’s Lysander pilot he is expected to fly a pick-up operation to extract Lamirault when the need arises, so needs to be familiar with the area.

They take off in Whitley P5029 at 22.15, and are routed via Abingdon and Tangmere. On their return they are diverted to Digby because of fog, landing at 07.20.

Claude Lamirault is a controversial figure: only 22 in 1940, before the war he had been involved with ‘Action Française’, a right-wing direct-action group of the 1930s that nowadays would rightly be considered a terrorist organisation. On the outbreak of war he was recalled to the army, serving with the Chasseurs Alpins. Escaping to Britain in October 1940, he met Lt Henri d’Estienne d’Orves, soon to be landed in Brittany to form the ‘Nemrod’ organisation. He was soon recruited by SIS: after his insertion he made contact with the left-wing activist Pierre Hentic.

Some sources have it that Lamirault was parachuted near Rambouillet in December 1940; they may have been confused by one of Lamirault’s later drops as CLAUDIUS – codenames were sometimes laboured puns on real names – most insecure – in December 1941.