Tuesday, 3 September 1940

No. 2 (Army Cooperation) Squadron

According to his logbook, on the night of 3 September 1940 Wing Commander Andrew Geddes, Officer Commanding No. II(AC) Squadron, flew a Lysander to a reception committee near Tours. Hans Onderwater, historian of No. II (AC) Squadron who saw Geddes’ logbook, recorded that the operation was flown in Lysander R9029, but in fact this aircraft serial belonged to an unmodified Lysander belonging to No. 4 Squadron, another Army Co-operation squadron. It is more likely that the aircraft flown was Lysander R9027, the first Lysander known to have been modified by Westlands with an underslung 150-gallon fuel tank filched from a Handley-Page Harrow.

Geddes recorded this flight in his logbook as a ‘Long-range air test’ and I have no reason to doubt that this was exactly what it was, a practical range-proving test to validate this modified aircraft for operations. Though Geddes appears to have told Onderwater that the flight’s real purpose was to carry an agent from Newmarket to a reception near Tours, this is unlikely. First, 3 September was in the middle of the ‘dark’ period, with no moonlight: although Tours would have been relatively easy to find, the surrounding countryside would have been pitch dark, although it was unlikely to have been blacked-out; even by 1942 the Germans had not managed to persuade the French to show no lights. Second, any Lysander operational sortie is unlikely to have departed from Newmarket, but from somewhere near the south coast, like Tangmere, in order to maximise the limited effective range. Third, in September 1940 there were no agents ‘in situ’ to organise a reception. Moreover, the RAF had already refused to sanction a ‘blind’ landing on Fontainebleau racecourse, the main concern being that deliberately placed obstacles, such as were currently being placed in fields all over southern England, were thought unlikely to show up in reconnaissance photos. (A Spitfire PRU sortie of 23 August shows Fontainebleau racecourse is considerable detail, with no obstacles.) Fourth, the RAF had already decided that agents were to be parachuted by Whitley.

Geddes does, however, have a definite link with the early days of 419 Flight. In September 1940 F/Lt Walter Farley uses No. 2 Squadron’s alternative landing ground at Somersham to practice night landings with his agent Philip Schneidau, before the latter is parachuted into France. Farley is likely to have received practical Lysander advice from No. 2 Squadron. Moreover, as we shall see, in early 1941 S/Ldr Knowles will borrow two of Geddes’ pilots to carry out Lysander operations: the first, F/O Baker, is shot down on a Whitley operation before he has a chance to fly a Lysander sortie; the second is F/O Gordon Scotter, who carries out two Lysander operations.

Monday, 26 August 1940

Date Operation Name Pilot Aircraft Agent Target Country Outcome
26/8/40 “Mr X” F/Lt E.B. Fielden Whitley III Lt Lodo van Hamel, Royal Dutch Navy Leiden Netherlands Completed

Aircrew Details
Pilot F/Lt E. B. Fielden
2nd Pilot Unknown, if any
Navigator F/Lt Marsh
Wireless Operator Sgt David Bernard
Rear Gunner Unknown, if any
Despatcher S/Ldr D. Ross Shore, AFC
Agent Lt. Lodo van Hamel

F/Lt E.B. Fielden made a second attempt to drop Lodo van Hamel on the night of the 26-27th. Louis Strange was not on this sortie, but he wrote that Fielden:

shut his engines right off at 8,000 feet about four miles out at sea, glided right on to the D.Z. near Leiden without touching his engines, dropped Mr X down wind landing him twenty yards from the mark, and was away round Leiden and on his way back before the searchlight opened up on him.

If this account sounds a little glib, it’s still likely to have been essentially true. In any case Strange’s account is the only one there is. Louis Strange was not above embellishing an account to improve the narrative. His own life had been full of adventures, his accounts scarcely credible. Historians have tended to seize upon such irregularities — often, as here, in the cause of others — to cast doubt on the whole. Some may have found it galling to learn of evidence that proved its essential truth. Even allowing for Strange to have improved upon the facts — his narrative of the first attempt allows a morning air raid on North Weald that actually did not turn up until mid-afternoon, by which time he, Fielden and their now-unarmed Whitley were safely back at Ringway — his basic narrative is borne out by official records.

F/O J.A. ‘Tony’ O’Neill accompanied Fielden to North Weald on the second attempt. The Ringway ORB records that he flew to North Weald with Fielden on the 26th, and back the next day. But there’s no entry in his logbook to indicate he flew on the operational sortie, though he had recorded the first attempt on the 23rd and a short test-flight on the 26th. Whoever flew as Fielden’s Second Pilot, if he took one, has not been recorded.

S/Ldr Donald Ross Shore definitely flew on both attempts. Whereas his logbook records both Fielden and Strange as pilots for the first attempt, Shore noted only Fielden as pilot for the night of the 26th. This backs up the evidence in F/Lt O’Neill’s logbook that he did not fly the operation itself; the reason is not recorded. S/Ldr Shore recorded F/Lt Marsh as Navigator on both attempts, but he did not note Sgt Bernard as the Wireless Operator. In 2004 I interviewed Wing Commander David Bernard at his home. His memories, unassisted by his logbook which would have been impounded after his capture in 1941, dovetail with Louis Strange’s account of the successful attempt.  At the time of my interview with David Bernard neither of us knew of the Ringway ORB record, or of Strange’s account. I later learned that Bernard had made a recording for the Imperial War Museum.

The date for van Hamel’s parachute drop has been generally assumed to have been the 28th, but the several items of evidence pointing to the night of the 26-27th is contemporary, and therefore most likely to be correct. I have no explanation for the discrepancy: I can only speculate that van Hamel may have lain low before getting in touch with his contacts, to ensure he hadn’t been followed after landing.

Sources

TNA AIR 20/2263: Operations Record Book, RAF Ringway.
RAF Museum, Hendon: Typescript for ‘More Recollections of an Airman’, Louis Strange’s unpublished second volume of memoirs.
Logbook: S/Ldr D. Ross Shore
Personal interviews: W/Cdr David Bernard, 2004.

Monday, 26 August, 1940

RAF Silloth

The RAF Court of Inquiry into the shooting down of Oettle’s Whitley issues its judgement. The Hurricane pilot who shot the Whitley down, Sergeant JCW Parrott, is held directly to blame ‘for shooting down Whitley aircraft N.1411 without orders to do so, and without  sufficient reason for assuming it was hostile.’ He is also held indirectly to blame for failing to obtain explicit orders on what action to take if the Whitley failed to identify itself, and for failing to read a related order in the Pilots’ Book.

F/O Oettle is held directly to blame for assuming that R4118 was the aircraft he’d seen earlier, and for not repeating the recognition signal. On September 13 the AOC 17 Group will further blame Oettle for assuming that the fighters had been making dummy attacks, a prohibited practice.  The Duty Officer and Station Commander are blamed for not issuing explicit orders, but 17 Group falls short of blaming itself for omitting a crucial portion of HQ Coastal Command’s original signal: “Air Ministry consider it preferable that an occasional British aircraft flown by the enemy should escape destruction rather than instructions should be given which might lead to the destruction of our own aircraft in error.”

Bomber Command takes a very different view. In October 1940 a staff officer, Schneider Trophy pilot Wing Commander John Boothman, AFC, will write: “. . . A coastal station away from the normal war zone was maintaining a private fighter force of aircraft filched from an M.U. and operating without any reasonable control or without any of the normal aids which are considered essential. This force must have been a menace to any law-abiding pilot for miles around. . . . A pilot giving instruction over the west coast in broad daylight with a correctly marked aeroplane is not expected to assume that every British aeroplane is going to attack him and, in consequence, fly along firing off the colours of the day.”

Sources

TNA AIR 14/390.

Saturday, 24 August 1940

RAF North Weald

F/Lt Fielden’s unarmed Whitley takes off from North Weald in the morning, well before a substantial German bombing attack at 3 p.m. This causes severe damage and kills several airmen.

F/Lt Walter Farley and Sgt David Bernard are posted to North Weald. Sgt Bernard’s posting order is to one of the resident Fighter squadrons, and it’s likely that Farley’s order is similar.

Sgt Bernard has been travelling from RAF Abingdon by rail, having been woken in the early hours, given a posting order and rail warrant at the guardroom. The train journey, interrupted by air raid alarms, takes all day. He arrives at North Weald in the evening, to find the base recovering after the German raid. Exhausted, he finds a vacant bed in the deserted Sergeants’ quarters. Only next morning does he discover why they were deserted: an unexploded bomb at the other end of the building.

Sources

Logbooks, L.A. Strange, W.R. Farley
Interview with W/Cdr David Bernard, 2004
Recorded interviews of David Bernard, IWM
ORB, Central Landing School, Ringway

Friday, 23 August 1940

Date Operation Name Pilot Aircraft Agent Target Country Outcome
23/8/40 “Mr X” F/Lt E.B. Fielden Whitley III “T”, K7218 Lt Lodo van Hamel, Royal Dutch Navy Leiden Netherlands Abandoned: searchlight site near target

Aircrew Details
Pilot F/Lt Earl B. Fielden
2nd Pilot S/Ldr Louis Strange, DSO, MC, DFC*
Navigator F/Lt Marsh
Wireless Operator None – no W/T
Rear Gunner None – no rear turret
Despatcher S/Ldr D. Ross Shore, AFC
Agent Lt. Lodo van Hamel

Lodo van Hamel

Van Hamel, a Lieutenant in the Royal Dutch Navy, has escaped to England after arranging for the evacuation of Princess Juliana to England by sea. He has also acted creditably in command of a Dutch Navy sloop during the Dunkirk evacuation, defiantly flying the Dutch ensign near the beaches. François van ‘t Sant, head of the Dutch government-in-exile’s intelligence service and a controversial Dutch courtier, asks for a volunteer to return to Holland and gather information about conditions in Holland under Nazi rule. Van ‘t Sant has had dealings with the Dutch section of SIS before the war, and he offers his government’s services. The Dutch Navy is asked to provide a volunteer. Kicking his heels in London, Van Hamel steps forward without hesitation.

Early attempts to land agents on the exposed beaches of Holland and Belgium have met with mixed success. By the end of July German control of the coast is tight. Van Hamel agrees to be dropped by parachute. He is given rudimentary parachute training at Ringway. The parachute school’s Commandant, S/Ldr Louis Strange, writes many years later: “We had given him a drop or two at Ringway and one at night, so off we went to North Weald to fill up and await final orders from the Air Ministry.”

F/Lt Earl Bateman Fielden, known as ‘Batty’, is chosen to fly the operation. He is already experienced at dropping parachutists: he has flown with Sir Alan Cobham’s Flying Circus during the 1930s, when a key part of its act involved the dropping of dare-devil parachutists such as Harry Ward. During the ‘Phoney War’ both Fielden and Strange served in No.24 Squadron, ferrying senior officers and politicians between Hendon and the BEF in France. One of S/Ldr Strange’s early acts as commandant of the Parachute Training School was to request F/Lt Fielden’s posting to Ringway. Fielden is now Strange’s Chief Flying Instructor.

Louis Strange, not one to pass up an opportunity for action, flies as Fielden’s Second Pilot. His logbook records F/Lt Marsh as the navigator. S/Ldr Donald Ross Shore, now recovered from his parachuting injury, flies in the rear fuselage as van Hamel’s despatcher.

The aircraft is one of Ringway’s own Whitley IIIs. Identified by the letter “T” in Strange’s logbook, a Ringway photo from 1941 shows that ‘T’ was K7218. The photo also shows that this particular Whitley’s rear turret has been removed and replaced by an experimental parachuting platform. This explains Strange’s later comment that the Whitley was defenceless. At North Weald, Strange scrounges a machine-gun for the front turret before they set off for Holland. There is no W/T operator, and probably no W/T set. As they approach the Dutch coast they encounter strengthening winds and cloud. They cross the Dutch coast near Bergen, quite a way north of the target. The forecast winds have been inaccurate in both strength and direction. Eventually they find the dropping-point near Sessenheim, about five kilometres north-east of Leiden. It is raining and gusty. Strange and Fielden have just decided that the wind is too strong for the man they call ‘Mr X’ to be parachuted when the Whitley is illuminated by ‘a powerful searchlight’ shining from near the spot where they have been about to drop the agent. They climb away to safety and return to North Weald, reaching it at about 7 a.m.

Sources

TNA AIR 29/520: ORB, Central Landing School, Ringway.
Typescript for ‘More Recollections of an Airman’, Louis Strange, RAF Museum.
Logbooks: Louis Strange, Donald Ross Shore.