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.
Shortly before 6 p.m. Keast tells Ops that he is planning to take off at 0030; this will only be confirmed after he receives the weather forecast at 10.30. At 2346 he confirms that the operation is ‘on’. He plans to take off at 0100, and estimates his return for 0500, though with a possible diversion to Tangmere.
Keast and his crew takes off in Whitley ‘A’ (T4264) at 0115. F/O McMurdie is the 2nd Pilot, but Keast does his own navigation. The wireless-operator and Rear Gunner are Sgt Dai Davies and David Bernard; Bernard has acquired an experimental parachute-harness from Henlow. Also aboard, flying as ‘Front Gunner’ is F/O Baker, a Lysander pilot on loan from No. II(AC) Squadron. As on his previous sorties, his job is to learn the routes and pinpoints, as he may have to fly this way on his own.
Shortly after they drop the agent, Gaston Poplimon, near Namur, their Whitley is hit by flak, losing at least one engine. Still at low level, Keast has no option but to belly-land in a field by the Namur-Louvain road, near the hamlet of Cognolée. The aircraft lands so close to the road that the wings are only yards from the line of trees by the road-edge. Though unhurt, they cannot escape as they are too close to the village and the road. They are taken to Namur for interrogation. The Germans think Sgt Bernard is the agent due to his unconventional parachute-harness; he is given dental work he doesn’t need. The Germans find documents in the Whitley that link the crew with the trip to Poland two nights before.
At 0445 Knowles is told that the runway had been bombed, and that the returning aircraft would be diverted to Mildenhall. An hour later he is told that there has been no news of S/Ldr Keast.
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.