CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SECOND TOUR OF OPS

 

I was posted back to operational flying for a second tour. The posting was to 179 Squadron based at Gibraltar flying Wimpys on anti-submarine sorties against German U-Boats. I reported to the R.A.F. station Chivenor, near Barnstaple in north Devon, the Squadron's home base to which its aircraft returned for 500-hour overhauls.

On arrival at Chivenor I was advised that I would leave for Gibraltar on the next squadron aircraft returning there. I was to take over a crew whose captain was about to finish his operational tour. I did not get away on the first aeroplane because it had to take a spare engine leaving no weight margin for a passenger. Another aeroplane would not be going for three weeks.

Faced with three weeks of idleness at Chivenor, I telephoned the Waaf Commanding Officer at Haverford West (the “Queen Bee” as we called those in that position) requesting a leave pass and rail warrant to Barnstaple to be issued to my wife. The request was at first denied. I asked the officer if she would kindly refer to a particular paragraph of King's Regulations and Air Council Instructions, the bible of Air Force procedure, which provided that a member of aircrew on overseas posting to operational flying was entitled to have a Service wife with him on embarkation leave. The “Queen Bee” somewhat reluctantly acceded to my request and Annette was issued with a leave pass and rail warrant to Barnstaple. I had no trouble getting leave for myself. The only condition was that I checked with the R.A.F. Station at Chivenor once a day to see whether there was an aircraft to take me to Gibraltar. At Barnstaple Annette and I booked into a hotel for a very pleasant second honeymoon which fortuitously became quite extended.

The first extension was due to the pilot I was to replace being taken to hospital in Gibraltar. He still had one op to do to complete his tour and that would have to be done when he came out of hospital. The “Queen Bee” was none too impressed when I telephoned her to extend Annette's leave. But this time she did not deny it. Later I had to ask for a further extension when I was advised that 179 Squadron was being posted back to England and that I would wait at Chivenor until its return.In the event, Annette and I were together at Barnstaple for nine weeks with the added bonus that I was not going overseas. Shortly after her return to Haverford West Annette was granted discharge from the Waaf because she was pregnant.

When 179 Squadron returned from Gibraltar it became based at Predannack at Lizard Point in Cornwall, the most southern tip of England. The squadron was flying Mark XIV Wellingtons. That version was powered by two Bristol Hercules engines each of 1600 horsepower, a great improvement on the Mark VIIIs I had flown in the Middle East. The Mark XIVs had 360 degree radar and carried a Leigh Light. This was the ingenious installation of a naval searchlight in the fuselage amidships which could be hydraulically lowered and manoeuvred with a joystick on the bombsight to illuminate U-Boats on the surface at night. U-Boats at that time had to surface at night to run their diesel motor to recharge their batteries. Only battery power could be used when the boats were submerged. The best chance the air force had for a strike on the U-Boats was therefore at night.

Leigh light attacks required a particular flying technique. The lowering of the light created a marked increase on drag on the aeroplane therefore the throttles had to be opened to give extra power. The searchlight was switched on at a height of only 50 feet which was the attack height for dropping depth charges. They would be likely to disintegrate on impact with the water if dropped from any higher level. The 50 feet level was attained at night with the aid of a radio altimeter on the pilot's instrument panel. It registered height by sending a signal diagonally down from a transmitter on one wingtip.The reflection of the signal off the water went to a receiver on the other wingtip. The time lapse between transmission and receiving was converted to feet above sea level. Fortunately, this was a very accurate instrument as it needed to be. When the Leigh Light was switched on the intense beam reflected back from the water into the pilot's eyes distorting where the sea level was. This created a mesmeric effect which could lead to the pilot flying straight into the sea. Some of the first pilots to test and experiment with the Leigh Light when it was first produced were killed in this way. To counter this effect we trimmed the aeroplane slightly tail heavy as we went into an attack. This meant we had to deliberately apply forward pressure on the control column to keep the aeroplane's nose down. If our attention was diverted by the beam causing the forward pressure on the control column to relax, the aeroplane would automatically climb.

We carried five 250 lb depth charges on anti-submarine ops. When a U-Boat was on the surface at night to recharge its batteries, a lot of the crew stood on deck to enjoy the fresh air. An aircraft approaching downwind may not be heard above the sound of the U-Boat's diesels and the noise of the waves splashing on the boat. A sudden beam from a Leigh Light could so unnerve the German sailors that some Coastal Command pilots reported seeing men leap off the deck into the sea.

The motto of 179 Squadron was Delentum Deleo (“ Hunting the hunter”). The captain of the crew I was taking over from had one more op to complete when the squadron returned from Gibraltar. I decided to fly it with him in order to get acquainted with my new crew. I was not impressed with the captain. He chose not to investigate any radar blip the radar operator reported to him. I soon learnt when he left the squadron that the crew had little respect for him.

But the rest of the crew were good. The second pilot was a jovial Cockney, Flight-Sergeant Stan Wilder, who was quite a comedian. My navigator was an Australian, Pilot Officer Johnnie Lipman who was very efficient, continuing the good fortune I had on my first tour of operations in having an excellent navigator. The radar-wireless operator-air gunners were English - Warrant Officer Kelly, Flight-Sergeant Neagle and Sergeant Hooper.

My first operations on 179 Squadron were a series of night anti-submarine sweeps in the Bay of Biscay which U-Boats returning from Atlantic patrol had to cross to return to their base at Brest in France. The Bay of Biscay was notorious for wild weather. It was not unusual to be lashed by high winds and driving rain which was not at all pleasant when patrolling at a height of only 500 feet above sea level. At their Brest base the U-Boats tied up in pens with thick reinforced concrete ceilings to protect them from bombing raids.

In this period we made only one radar contact with a U-Boat. Although we circled to approach it from downwind to lessen the chance of our engine noise warning the surfaced boat, our Leigh Light revealed only the wake it left as it made an emergency dive. We dropped our depth charges just ahead of the wake but when we made another sweep with the light we could see no debris evidence that the U-Boat had been destroyed. But we had no way of determining whether it might have been damaged. We transmitted in code a sighting signal which was relayed by Coastal Command Headquarters to the Admiralty and from thence to a Royal Navy corvette flotilla patrolling in the vicinity of our sighting. We were led to understand when we were debriefed on return to our base that the navy had sunk a U-Boat in that position.

Returning to Predannack one night from a sweep in the Bay of Biscay I was advised by wireless message from Group Headquarters that the weather was closing in all over Southern England. Only one R.A.F station was open. That was Exeter but it was marginally operational. I diverted there just in time. It closed down twenty minutes after I landed. We were there for three days waiting for the weather to clear to enable us to return to Predannack. While waiting at Exeter the crew went to a pub, which, of course, was not an unusual way of filling in time when weatherbound. At the pub my Cockney second pilot introduced me to cider from the barrel. It came in three grades--rough, medium and sweet. Because of sugar rationing in England even sweet was fairly sharp. I certainly couldn't stomach rough which was very sour.

The Battle of the Atlantic , in which the German U-Boats struck at the convoys bringing vital military equipment from America to Britain and much-needed food supplies from around the world including New Zealand, was still at a critical stage although U-Boat losses were mounting in the face of combined operations between the Royal Navy and Coastal Command and more ships were getting through the enemy blockade.

The military build-up in Britain was reaching a crescendo at this time as the Allies made final preparations for the invasion of Europe. Our aeroplanes, like every Allied aeroplane, had black and white bold stripes painted on the upper and under surfaces of the wings. This was to help Allied ground and naval forces identify friend from foe in the congested skies over the invasion area.

The south of England for ten miles back from the coast was sealed for a period leading up to the invasion when the troops were assembling and the invasion armada was congregating. No one, neither service personnel nor civilians, was allowed to travel out and civilians outside the area were not allowed in. This was a security measure to try to limit the risk of information on the build-up of invasion forces reaching the enemy. As it transpired Germany had no indication of where the invasion of Europe would take place although it was well aware than an invasion was pending.

Just before this restriction was imposed, Annette had come down to visit me. Since she had been discharged pregnant from the Waaf she had been living in Reigate with her mother. I was not allowed to live out because, with the invasion pending at a date not yet fixed, all aircrew stationed along the south coast of England were on constant standby when not actually flying on ops. I got Annette accommodation in a private home in Mullion, a nearby village. The officers' mess was just along the road at Poldhu Cove in a former temperance hotel which had been requisitioned by the R.A.F. The ghosts of the temperance people must have shivered when the first thing the air force did when it took over the hotel was to construct a bar.

Annette's visit became extended because once in the travel restricted zone she could not return to Reigate. To see one another we had to be content with her sitting on the beach in Poldhu Cove waiting for me to go down to be with her. This was possible because the beach was just below the mess on the headland and I could easily be summoned if required. Aircrew were given rostered stand down days. On one of these a New Zealand colleague on the squadron, Bill Lewis, took Annette and me in his car for an outing to the Helford River. The river estuary was crammed full of invasion barges waiting to take the assault troops across the Channel to storm ashore in France.

After the invasion of Normandy was launched on June 6, 1944, Annette was permitted to return home .I did not realise that she was moving from the reasonably safe area at Mullion to Reigate which was right on the path to London of Germany's newest weapon, the buzz bomb. It was a bomb with wings, a tail plane and a rudder .It was rocket-launched from ramps in Belgium, driven by a jet engine, kept on course for England by a gyroscope and carried just sufficient fuel to reach its target. When the fuel ran out, the engine stopped and the bomb crashed. The target was London but the course setting and fuel endurance was not always accurate. So the buzz bombs fell and exploded at various points in South-East England, including Reigate. Some were caught and disabled in the barrage balloon screen near Reigate.

On the squadron we were well aware that preparations were being made for the invasion of Europe. We knew we would have a role to play but we did not know when or, until the time came, what that role would be. It was apparent D Day was getting near. Apart from the coastal strip of southern England being sealed off we had seen vast numbers of strange craft gathering in harbours and secluded river estuaries. Other than the landing barges which were to ship the invasion troops and military vehicles and supplies across the Channel to France, there were craft which were destined to be moored off the invasion beaches to form artificial wharves for the transshipment of supplies from merchant ships which would follow in the wake of the invasion landings. This artificial harbour was called Mulberry. What we did not know until later was that the British had laid a pipeline under the Channel to pump fuel ashore in France at the moment of the assault on the Normandy beachhead to keep the military vehicles fueled. This was code named Pluto (an acronym for Pipeline Under The Ocean).

As we subsequently learnt General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the invasion forces (he subsequently became President of the United States of America) made the critical decision on June 5 to postpone storming the Normandy beaches for 24 hours. As the invasion forces were about to embark our squadron, along with all Allied units, received the following message from General Eisenhower:

“Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade towards

which we have striven these many months.

The eyes of the world are upon you. Good luck.

And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God

upon this great and noble undertaking.”

At dawn on June 6 five desolate beaches on the coast of Normandy - code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword - were stormed by Allied troops in the biggest military invasion in history. About a million men in 4000 craft disembarked in the assault on German General Rommel's (of Afrika Korps fame) “Atlantic Wall” defences. The previous night Bomber Command had pounded the defences and paratroops landed ahead of the main invasion attempting to soften up the enemy.

Several days before 179 Squadron began its invasion role of night patrols of the western entrance to the English Channel in co-operation with Royal Navy anti-submarine units to try to seal off the route of the invasion armada from U-Boat attacks. Our operation was code-named “Operation Cork”. In the critical stages of getting Allied armies established in Normandy not one ship was lost in the Channel. But, unexpectantly, not one U-Boat was sighted in this period. It was later revealed that no U-Boat had attempted to strike at the invasion fleet because all boats had been recalled from the Atlantic to the bomb-proof pens in Brest to get ready for a mass onslaught on the invasion armada they were expecting. But the Germans had miscalculated. They had apparently considered that the weather would be unsuitable in the first week of June and their U-Boat crews had been given leave.

Another miscalculation of the German High Command was that it anticipated the invasion would strike at Calais across the narrowest part of the English Channel. The R.A.F. contributed to the enemy's confusion by flying during the night before the dawn landings continuous creeping line ahead patrols over the Channel approaches to Calais. The aircraft carried out low-level drops of aluminium foil called “window” which would be reflected on German shore radar. Precise organisation and precision flying enabled the creeping line ahead sorties to advance across the Channel at the speed an invasion armada would travel. The Germans were lulled into the belief that invasion ships were on the way. Consequently German armies were rushed from the Normandy area up to the Calais area weakening the strength of the defenders in Normandy. Nevertheless, the Allies had to fight savagely to establish a footing in Europe from the Normandy beach heads.

U Boats came out of Brest once the invasion began and we continued patrols in the Bay of Biscay and the approaches to the English Channel for three months. One night we spotted a flickering light in the Channel.The Leigh Light revealed a Lancaster bomber which had crashed in the sea on returning from a bombing raid .It must have been too shot up to make it back to its home base in England . It was barely floating but it could not have been down for very long because some of the crew were still on the wing which was awash. They were waiting to get into the aeroplane's rubber raft. Some were already in the raft.

We kept circling to keep on eye on the downed crew in the half-light of night while homing an R.A.F. air sea rescue launch to the position. It was remarkable how quickly the rescue launch arrived. When it turned back to England with the aircrew safely aboard I saw the doomed aeroplane sink. We then resumed our patrol. On another occasion, in England 's long summer twilight, I spotted a wisp of smoke in the English Channel. At first I thought it could be a smoke float dropped to measure an aeroplane's drift. But it was discernibly moving forward which a smoke float could not do. Flying closer, I was sure the smoke was coming from what appeared to be a pipe sticking up above the water. We reported this to the Navy to investigate. Later the Navy detected a U-Boat under water in the vicinity and destroyed it.

We learnt in a subsequent naval intelligence bulletin circulated to Coastal Command squadrons that what we had reported was possibly the first sighting of Germany's new device for U-Boats called a snorkel. This was in effect an exhaust pipe which could be elevated above the surface to enable the submarine to use its diesel motors while submerged, rather than electric motors This eliminated the need to surface at night to recharge the batteries. The toll on U-Boats surfaced at night since the R.A.F developed the Leigh Light had forced the enemy to seek counter measures, such as the snorkel, to avoid surfacing for prolonged periods at night to recharge batteries.

Occasionally during the post-invasion period we did an Atlantic convoy escort. The convoy system had been operating since the outbreak of war. Ships sailed in clusters, often several hundred together, with naval escort to protect them from German U-boat attack. By the Spring of 1942 as many as 250 U-Boats were operating in the Atlantic at any one time. Shipping losses were heavy but gradually the combination of Royal Navy escorts and R.A.F. Coastal Command patrols took a toll on the U-Boats which suffered heavy losses. The convoy system enabled ships carrying vital supplies of war material and food to save Britain from defeat.

To come across a convoy far into the Atlantic at the exact time expected was a tribute to one's navigator. At night , particularly in the low visibility of rain squalls, we relied largely on our radar to identify the armada of ships. What a sight it was to come out of the mist at dawn to see the sea tinted pink at first then turning to gold and dotted with ships in several lines ahead. We would identify ourselves as friendly by signalling the code of the hour by Morse on the aldis lamp. Often the message would flash back from the Navy “nice to have your company”. We would count the ships to check if the correct number was afloat. If some were missing we would fly a search pattern to check whether vessels had lost contact with the convoy during the night. If we found stragglers we signalled their position to the naval escorts. If the search was fruitless the assumption was that U-Boats had struck.

The absence of any U-Boat sightings during a convoy patrol did not necessarily mean our operation was a waste of time. It could well mean that our presence had been detected by the enemy who chose not to attack the convoy and risk destruction by aerial depth charges. A U-Boat forced to remain submerged was a U-Boat robbed of much of its strike power. Patrolling a convoy for hours at a time could become monotonous but a pilot had to keep an eagle eye out for tell-tale signs of periscopes and the radar operators had to be vigilant in scanning their screen. We rotated our three radar /wireless operator/ air gunners every hour to protect them from cathode ray fatique.

At the end of September, 1944, 179 Squadron was moved to Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides islands off the west coast of Scotland. Again there were more aircrew than were needed to fly the aeroplanes to Benbecula. Some aircrew officers were required to escort the ground staff which had to travel by train to the port of Oban on the west coast of Scotland and thence to the Outer Hebrides by steamer. I volunteered to be an escort and was allowed to go ahead and join the party in London for the train journey north. This gave me the opportunity to see Annette at her home in Reigate before our baby was expected a few weeks later. Annette rushed up to London to meet me to accompany me down to Reigate. That journey must have been too much for her because that night she went into labour. Not having a telephone, I ran through Reigate in the blackout darkness to summon the doctor, nearly colliding with a concrete tank trap in the middle of the footpath. Annette's doctor was away. His locum came to examine her. He scared me by saying he could not hear the baby's heart beat. Then I learnt that he was deaf.

He decided Annette must get immediately to maternity hospital. She was booked at the Fulmar Chase hospital at Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire north of London, which had been provided for the wives of officers on active service by Lord Nuffield, whom I have already mentioned as a forces benefactor. To get there from Reigate, a journey of two hours or so, I had to summon an ambulance. The part-time driver happened to be the local butcher boy which seemed a little macabre. Annette's mother came with us. She and I returned to Reigate in the ambulance after seeing Annette settled in at the hospital. The next afternoon I had to join the train party moving to the Outer Hebrides. I had time to see my wife and new born son John Douglas Denton - John after my first tour navigator Johnnie Devine who by now was on a different squadron, Douglas after Annette's father and Denton after my father. He was born on October 2, 1944. When Annette was ready to leave the maternity hospital she went to an adjacent home for post-natal care and mothercraft. That home was also provided by Lord Nuffield.

After seeing Annette and new-born son, I joined the squadron ground party at Euston Station in London to escort it north. We travelled overnight to Oban. The steamer took five and-a-half hours from there to Lochboisdale on the Outer Hebrides. Then we went by bus to Benbecula. What a bleak, windswept place! The runway had been built over a series of estuaries in 1940 as a retreat for the R.A.F. in the event of the then anticipated German invasion of England. But when the invasion threat vanished the station was never completed. The temperature was near freezing. We lived in corrugated iron Nissen Huts which had a pot belly stove which we kept blazing hot to make the hut at least habitable.

At times the wind was so strong that it slowly rotated propellers of parked aeroplanes against the compression of the engines. Often we took off in winds of up to 90 knots. While it meant a turbulent ride at least it made for a very short take off run. Sea Lions often squatted on the runway because the tarmac absorbed what little heat there was in the sun and gave the creatures more warmth than the adjacent rocks. Lorries drove the Sea Lions off the runway before the aeroplanes could take off.

Our operations from Benbecula were anti-U-Boat patrols in the passage between the north of Scotland and the Faeroe Islands and also between the Faeroes and Iceland which were routes used by U-Boats going from German bases at Kiel to the Atlantic hunting grounds. Flying as far north as that, we often saw the spectacular aurora borealis - the colourful, pendulating lights in the sky radiating from the earth's north magnetic pole.

The bitter winds, and sometimes snow flurries, made conditions uncomfortable for the ground crew preparing our aircraft for night take-offs. This applied all over England in the winter. I had to admire the attention the fitters (servicing engines) and the riggers (servicing the airframes) gave their work under these trying conditions. I tried to make a point of getting to my aeroplane a little time before take-off in order to have a chat with these lads , sometimes while they sat around a brazier drinking a mug of char (tea) trying to thaw out. In this way I got to know about their families and to ask after their kids. This expression of friendliness and of showing an interest in them , not uncommon with New Zealand and Australian officers, paid off because I think our aeroplanes were perhaps better serviced. English officers tended to be aloof and at times arrogant towards the other ranks. God knows why. After all, every member of the Air Force, of whatever rank, was part of the team which had a common purpose--to win the war.