A Very Unusual Air War (50 page)

Although I was still (not for much longer) an NCO, I got to know Paddy very well. My wife (we were married Sept 1941 ) lived at Slough and Paddy’s fiancée, a girl-next-door romance, lived at Kingston. On days off, we travelled together on the train from Victoria. On these occasions Paddy always wore a mac to hide his decorations. I thought he was a great guy, a real hero and I was devastated when his death was announced, we all were.

In 2004, a Dublin radio station put out a one hour broadcast on him entitled ‘In Search of Paddy Finucane’. I had been interviewed by phone and so had a small part in the story. Paddy’s elder brother, Kevin, tipped me off and so I heard and taped the programme.

Hugh Godefroy.
Then a flying officer, he had joined AFDU a few weeks before me. He was an excellent pilot and with F/Lt Denis Clive was detached to Farnborough to carry out comparative tests on the first FW190 to fall into our hands. This was the one that landed at Pembrey when the pilot, after bombing Portland, flew red on black and thought he was back in France. On returning to Duxford Hugh joined F/O. Walker and me to form the fighter affiliation flight under the command of S/Ldr. Jock Murray, DFM, DFC. We toured many Bomber Command airfields to teach the bomber boys how to ‘corkscrew’ in order to evade Luftwaffe attacks. Poor sods – little did they know! I remember that Hugh acquired an Alsation puppy, naturally called Spit and took him with him tucked into a parachute bag that he carried on his lap.

S/Ldr Reg Grant
. The Australian CO of 452 Sqdn. We met often at briefings before ops. My enduring memory of him dates from Christmas Eve 1941. My newly wedded wife had come over to Kenley just for the night so that we could attend a dance at Croydon airport. A small group of us went to Croydon by train and found ourselves in a carriage with, sitting opposite, several beligerent army chaps. There were five of us, myself and wife, my friend Dessie O’Connor, Reg Grant and one of his 452 pilots. The squaddies who had been in the Dunkirk evacuation, despite the presence of my wife, were all set for trouble. (One of our pilots had been badly beaten up only the week before.) Reg, who was quite a small man, faced them when they said, ‘Where were the airforce when we were being dive bombed?’ He said we were there further into France trying to stop the enemy before they got to the coast. He finally silenced them by saying that unlike those who escaped, many of our chaps, including his only brother, were shot down and killed there.

Lt Giles Guthrie
. He was my counterpart in the NAFDU (Naval Air Fighting Development Unit). During my time at Duxford I had a sleeping out pass and we had rooms at a huge old farmhouse house in Duxford village. It belonged to a young couple, farmer Guy Smith and his wife Ynez. She had been a dancing instructress with one of the London big bands and loved to give parties for the officers and their wives. Giles and his lovely wife, Rhona, frequently attended and always stayed at College Farm both for Ynez’s and for mess parties, so, although we were not exactly in their social class, we got to know them very well and were never conscious of the social distinction. Many years after the war, I attended a Birmingham Chamber of Commerce lunch at the county cricket ground. Giles, who was then the chief executive of British Overseas Airways, was the guest speaker, he spotted me at the far end of my table and immediately left his seat to come round and greet me, to the amazement of the assembled company.

Jim Hallowes
was briefly O/C Flying at AFDU, Wittering, from March 1943, taking over from Ted Smith, at the time of our move from Duxford to Wittering. He was there until July and I was sorry to see him go. He was a quiet, modest and very likeable man. It was not until some time later that I learned of his most distinguished career. Hallowes was given command of 222 Squadron at North Weald in June 1942. In August he took command of 165 Squadron and led it in the Dieppe operation on the 19th, destroying a Do217 and damaging another and on 8th November he damaged another FW190. Hallowes was awarded the DFC (gazetted 19th January 1943). In October 1943 he took command of 504 Squadron at Peterhead. Hallowes was promoted to acting wing commander in March 1944 and became station commander at Dunsfold. He stayed on in the RAF, in the Secretarial Branch, and retired on 8th July 1956 as a squadron leader, retaining the rank of Wing Commander. He went to work for the Ministry of Transport. Jim Hallowes died in 1987.

P/O Roy Hussey. DFC, DFM
. A strikingly handsome young officer posted to AFDU for experience in 1944. He is in the group photograph taken at the Officers’ Mess dinner when W/Co Blackadder left, to be replaced by young Allan Wright. He re-turned to ‘ops’ with 19 Squadron and was sadly killed in an accident coming in to land at Dallachy in Mustang KH440 on February 20th 1945.

‘Sandy’ Johnstone
was our Sqdn. Ldr. He was the C/O of 602 when I joined the squadron at Aire in July 1941. I did not get to know him before our move to Kenley as he was replaced immediately by S/Ldr Meagher. In fact, I did not meet him until long after the war when I attended a reunion in 1995. He very kindly autographed a copy of his book, which is now among my treasures.

W/Cdr John (Johnny) Kent
. He was the Kenley wing leader in August 1941. An operation that is still fresh in my mind was on August 7th. 602 were flying as escort cover, flying above and to the right of 6 Blenheims. My logbook read, ‘I flew as Red 4 and when about 10 miles west of St Omer Red Section were dived on by 6 Me. 109s, they overshot and the leading e/a was attacked by W/Co Kent, who followed it down. I attacked the 2nd 109, firing a short burst from astern and slightly below. It turned onto its back and went down vertically leaving a trail of white smoke. I later claimed it probably destroyed but the W/Co confirmed that it was seen to crash so my claim was raised to one confirmed destroyed. P/O Thornton was missing.’

S/Ldr Jimmie Lacey
was my flight commander very briefly in March 1942. During that month things warmed up and we started intensive operations. But by then, the FW190s were appearing in numbers and our losses started to mount. It was in this month that my friend ‘Dessie’ O’Connor, from training days, was shot down and killed. I remember Jimmie Lacey as a slim young man with very fair hair and piercing, pale blue eyes, It was many years later in the 1980s that I met him again at a Spitfire society AGM in London: by then he was very ill and died shortly after.

Sgt Bill Loud
. Bill became a member of ‘A’ Flight 602 in March 1942. He flew as my number two several times and may have been in that position when he scored his first success, a ‘probable’, on May 1st 1942. I was on that show and also claimed a probable as well as a damaged. See also my comment at the end of the Paddy Finucane story.

S/Ldr James MacLachlan
. Another of the really notable members of the RAF. His biography,
One Armed Mac
by Brian Cull and Roland Symons, was published in July 2003. I recommend it as a good read. He had two stints at AFDU, the first was as a supernumerary member but it is the second which has remained in my memory. In
Aces High
it says that he joined AFDU in June, but he actually joined at the beginning of May or even the end of April, as we flew together on May 3rd in a Heston Phoenix. As described earlier, it was on this trip that another light aircraft chose to join us in formation. To warn him off, Mac unscrewed his false left arm and shook it at the pilot, out of the port window. The operation with Geoff Page described in
Aces High
was carried out from AFDU in two of the Unit’s Mustangs. To enable them to achieve maximum speed both machines were ‘hand polished’ and we all took turns to help. On 29 June the duo participated in the destruction of six aircraft (four Hs 126s of JG 105, two each, and two KG-6 Ju-88s, sharing one with Page) in a single sortie. On his next mission on 18 July his Mustang FD442 was hit by ground fire when crossing the French coast and crash-landed. MacLachlan was critically injured. He was taken prisoner, and died on 31 July 1943. His loss in their second operation saddened us all.

Johnny Niven
. We were together during training from December 1940, through SFTS, Hullavington to Operational Training at 57 OTU, Hawarden. It was there that I really became friendly with John and I have several photos of us together as Sgt Pilots. We were separated while I did my stint at 41 Squadron and I was delighted when we met again in the Segeants’ Mess at Kenley in July 1941. We flew in ‘A’ Flight and later that year John was commissioned and, due to our heavy losses, achieved rapid promotion. He became ‘A’ Flight commander and thus my immediate commanding officer. He was just 21 and I, with many others, attended his typically Scottish 21st birthday party, which took place just before he gained his commission. I vaguely remember holding him back when he tried to march round the parade ground backwards. Many, many years later we met in one of those coincidences which rarely happen. John was shot down later in the war and I believe was badly injured. During a visit some 20 years ago to Hendon, I was lunching in the restaurant when John walked up and greeted me.Not long before our meeting, he had suffered a serious heart attack and was still not in the best of health. He invited me to visit his home at Inverness for a short holiday. Sadly, before I could make the trip, he suffered a further heart attack and died.

W/Cdr Geoff Page
. As mentioned in the recollection of F/Lt James MacLachlan, Geoff was another of the supernumeraries attached to AFDU. He did some general flying but his real purpose was to join S/Ldr MacLachlan in their attack on the German western training bases. We met at various air shows after the war. I made the visit to Capel le Ferne for the commemoration service of the Battle of Britain Memorial some years ago. Geoff was then seriously ill but determined to be there and we had a brief conversation. He managed to autograph my copy of his book
The Guinea Pigs
, which tells the story of his recovery from terrible burns to his face and hands caused when his aircraft was shot down in August 1940. He was cared for by Sir Archibald MacIndoe and was the founder chairman of the Guinea Pig Club.

W/Com John Peel
. He was another of the wing leaders at Kenley in 1941. On July 21st I made my 4th operational flight with 602 Squadron, when we escorted 3 Stirlings to bomb the railway yards at Lille. Near the target we were attacked by five 109s and the Wing Commander was badly hit but managed to return to base. F/Lt Glyn Richie was not so lucky, he was shot down and killed. On the return leg very heavy flak was experienced.

Frenchman
Baron Roland François de la Poype
(then Count de la Poype) was the equivalent rank of sergeant and joined us in the Sergeants’ Mess at the time when Paddy Finucane was CO. Roly still wore his original dark blue French uniform and cap. To us he was a typical young French officer, tall, slim and handsome, a wow with the ladies and good fun to be with. From time to time Roly received, via Switzerland, large sums of money from his family and would take us to our favourite pub, the Greyhound at Croydon for a right royal party, paying most if not all the cost. We also made forays to the nightclubs of London and on one such occasion Roly and I were more than merry. We had exchanged headgear and were stopped by the Service Police at Waterloo for being improperly dressed. I do not remember the outcome but presumably they did not press the matter. Roly was later commissioned and left the squadron to train and lead a group of French volunteers for the Russian Front, arriving at Ivanovo on 28th November 1942 with GC 3
Normandie.
He stayed there for two years, and became Warrant Officer and then Captain. He even became a Hero of the Soviet Union. After the war, he stayed for a while with the ‘Neu-Neu’ (French shorthand for the group Normandie Niemen) and afterwards he became the Air Attaché in Belgium, and then Yugoslavia.

Australian
Sgt John Sanderson
was a member of 602 before joining 452 Australian Squadron. On one of our ops his Spitfire was badly shot up and I have a picture of Sandy crouched beneath the wing, looking up through a gaping hole where the cannon shells had struck. Luckily Sandy himself was uninjured but he was extremely fortunate to get home.

Herbert Scott Sewell
(Susie). Susie was twice a member of AFDU, first at Duxford in 1942 and for a longer stay in the spring and summer of 1943. In 1942, before my wife joined me at Duxford, I lived in mess and came to know Susie well. The following year, when we had moved to Wittering, my wife returned to her home in Redditch for the birth of our first child. She was away from early May until early July and I again moved back into mess. During this period Susie and I became firm friends. He was very good company, an attractive personality, popular with the ladies but also a typical fighter pilot, respected by his fellows. In July he was appointed to carry out comparative testing and demonstrations of the newly acquired FW190 and had made several flights during the month. On July 31st 1943 Susie was carrying out fuel consumption tests on a modified Mosquito and I was flying with him as observer, taking the flow meter readings. When we were over the Thames valley the port engine cut and Susie made a precautionary approach to White Waltham. At the last moment we were baulked by some men on the perimeter trap. Susie opened to full throttle to go round again and the starboard engine cut. The aircraft stalled and crashed on the airfield. We were incredibly lucky to escape with a few cuts and bruises. In fact the ‘blood wagon’ crew looked quite disappointed when we walked away. Susie was badly shaken and a few days later he was posted on rest and I believe he was off flying for a time. I was told that he served as a Squadron Adjutant before going back to operations in March 1944. I remained in contact and learned that he left the RAF late in 1945. He did not resume his pre-war job as a car salesman in Darlington but after training became a school teacher. After our Mosquito crash I, then also a Flt. Loot, took over Susie’s position of unit flight commander and also the appointment to fly the FW190.

S/Ldr T.S.Wade
, known to all as ‘Wimpy’ from his resemblance to the cartoon character. Again, I was not aware of his success as a fighter ace until much later. He joined AFDU in October1943 as OC Flying, a position he occupied until October 1944. He then spent three months in the USA, returning to AFDU, which had then moved to Tangmere in February. He was there until the end of March 1945. In my humble opinion Wimpy was one of the best Spitfire pilots I knew. His handling was exceptional, he could do everything short of making it sit up and beg. He loved to show off with aerobatics at low altitudes. A favourite trick was to make his final landing approach inverted and roll out when crossing the airfield boundary. He would often perform a slow roll immediately after take-off while retracting his undercarriage. On August 14th 1944 we were testing a Spitfire Mk X1V that had been fitted with a curved windscreen against one with the usual armoured flat panel. One of the trials was at night when we took turns with each aircraft. I flew the ‘special’ first, then we swapped over and Wimpy flew the trial machine. One of the problems was that on throttling back for landing there were streams of sparks from the exhausts, which played hell with night vision. When Wimpy came in he was blinded and only got down at the third attempt. It was the only time I saw him badly shaken. He needed a drink but as it was then past midnight I had to take him home with me to get one. That machine, RM 689, was the one that crashed at Woodford Airshow killing David Moore.