Saturday, 1 February 1941

Stradishall – Ringway

F/Lt Keast flies with seven crew to Ringway in Whitley T4264. They stay for the next three days, almost certainly undergoing Ringway’s formal training course in dropping paratroops. This includes dropping a stick of several paratroops, a process unfamiliar to those used to dropping single agents. (In June, Sgt John Austin takes his crew on the Ringway pilots’ course, and records the flying syllabus in his logbook.)

Ringway is only just recovering from the daunting preparations for Operation Colossus, a planned attack on the Tragino viaduct in Apulia, south-east Italy. The purpose is to deny the arid province its supply of water, supplied by aqueduct from the mountains of the wetter west coast. The preparations have involved training the paratroops of ‘X’ Commando and eight selected bomber crews from Nos 51 and 78 Squadrons, and modifying their Whitley bombers for paratroop operations. Preparations have been intense, as the attack has to take place at the next full moon. The operation is to be mounted from Malta.

Operation Savanna

The reason for Keast and his crew to undertake this training becomes clear from a letter written the same day by Sir Charles Portal, The Chief of the Air Staff, to Sir Gladwyn Jebb, Hugh Dalton’s Assistant Under-Secretary. Portal’s subject is a plan to assassinate the aircrews of KG 100, the Luftwaffe’s forerunners to the RAF’s Pathfinders, as a means to stymie the Luftwaffe’s ability to devastate city targets through cloud by means of radio beams. In mid-November 1940 this unit marked the targets in Coventry; their accuracy ensured the city-centre’s destruction.

The plan is for a small team of agents to be dropped near the Luftwaffe base at Meucon, in southern Brittany. The pilots have been reported as using a bus to carry them to their billets in the nearby town of Vannes. The plan is to ambush the bus and kill the highly-skilled aircrew inside.

Though he must have sanctioned the raid, Air Marshal Portal is unhappy about the use of his aircraft and crews for an operation that does not comply with the rules of war:

I think that the dropping of men dressed in civilian clothes for the purpose of attempting to kill members of the opposing forces is not an operation with which the Royal Air Force should be associated. I think you will agree that there is a vast difference, in ethics, between the time-honoured operation of dropping of a spy from the air and this entirely new scheme for dropping what one can only call assassins.

In 1916 Portal had served with No. 60 Squadron, RFC. At that time the squadron was involved in some of the early agent-landing operations.

Portal also makes his opinions clear to Gubbins in a meeting at about the same time. Soldiers in uniform are allowed to kill enemy forces in uniform, but soldiers in civilian clothes are not. Gubbins points out that there is not room in the containers for uniforms to enable the agents to change into uniform, and in any case the agents (referred to as ‘operators’) might refuse to go on these terms. As the ‘assassins’ are on loan from De Gaulle, they know that their Free French uniforms will merely ensure their capture and execution. As Frenchmen in civilian clothes they might at least stand a chance of melting into the background.

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.’

Wednesday, 22 January 1941

Stradishall – Coventry

The January moon period has ended; the last night on standby was the 20th.

F/Lt Keast flies Whitley P5029 to the Armstrong Whitworth’s factory at Baginton, on the south-east outskirts of Coventry). He takes five crew. (The airfield was built on the site of Whitley Abbey Farm, hence the aircraft’s name; nothing to do with Whitley Bay.)

There is no recorded explanation for the trip. Maintenance and repair/replacement of a Whitley’s normal equipment – engines, etc. – would have been carried out at an RAF base operating Whitleys, but almost all of these are in 4 Group, based north of the Humber. The exception is the training base (No. 10 OTU) at RAF Abingdon. RAF Stradishall is in 3 Group, and its resident squadron (No. 214 Sen) operates Wellingtons. The SD Flight therefore uses Abingdon’s facilities for maintenance. This trip to Baginton would have been necessary to fit or modify non-standard kit, such as a shroud to cover the tail wheel (to prevent parachute canopies from snagging), or to modify and test the parachute cable mounting points inside the fuselage. It is also possible that two or more long-range tanks are fitted to extend the range; although part of a Whitley’s range of optional equipment, fitting them is a non-trivial task, well outside the capabilities of the Flight’s ground-crew. Abingdon’s fitters might be unfamiliar with the procedure, as long-range tanks are not required on a Training base.

Sources

FJB Keast logbook

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’.