Spitfire!: The Full Story of a Unique Battle of Britain Fighter Squadron

By Dilip Sarkar

“A really excellent, detailed, comprehensive and moving history of 19 Squadron, RAF during the Second World War” from the author of Arnhem 1944 (Clash of Steel).
 
As a child, Dilip Sarkar was fascinated by the haunting image of an anonymous RAF Spitfire pilot. Taken minutes after landing from a Battle of Britain combat, this was Squadron Leader Brian Lane DFC, the commander of 19 Squadron, based at Fowlmere. Deeply moving was the discovery that, in 1942, Brian was reported missing after a futile nuisance raid over the Dutch coast.
 
During the mid-1980s, Dilip began researching the life and times of both Brian Lane and 19 Squadron, forging close friendships with many of the unit’s surviving Battle of Britain pilots and support staff. Nearly thirty years later, sadly all of the survivors are now deceased, but Dilip’s close relationship has provided a huge archive of correspondence and interviews in addition to a unique photographic collection. Furthermore, the author, a retired police detective, has thoroughly investigated the life—and death—of Squadron Leader Lane.
 
This completely new Spitfire! covers everything we would ever need to know about such a unit during the critical pre and early war period: the social, political, aviation and military history all in one volume—emphasizing the human experience involved and the stories of casualties. With an immense photographic collection—many published here for the first time—this book is destined to become a classic.
 
“The most thorough book about any squadron in RAF service during the Battle of Britain . . . an impeccable source of information and a gripping story—Most Highly Recommended.” —Firetrench

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781526732828

Dilip Sarkar

A prolific author, DILIP SARKAR has been obsessed with the Second World War for a lifetime. An MBE for ‘services to aviation history’, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, unsurprisingly, for a retired police detective with a First in Modern History, his work has always been evidence-based - often challenging long-accepted myths. Firmly focussed on the ‘human’ experience of war, his many previous works include the authorized biographies of Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader and Air Vice-Marshal ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, the best-selling Spitfire Manual and The Few. Dilip has presented at such prestigious venues as Oxford University, the Imperial War and RAF Museums, and National Memorial Arboretum; he works on TV documentaries, both on and off screen.

Book preview

Introduction

figure

One of the most well-known photographs of the Battle of Britain – which fascinated the author as a child, inspiring this detailed study. Taken at Fowlmere after a patrol during the Battle of Britain, the strain on the face of twenty-three-year-old Squadron Leader Brian Lane DFC, the Commanding Officer of 19 Squadron, is all too evident. The other pilots are (left) Flight Lieutenant Jack ‘Farmer’ Lawson DFC and Flight Sergeant George ‘Grumpy’ Unwin DFM.

On 21 September 1940 official photographers descended upon Manor Farm, Fowlmere, a hastily built satellite airfield to the nearby Sector Station at Duxford, near Cambridge – there to photograph the personnel and Spitfires of 19 Squadron. The images arising remain amongst the most well-known of the Battle of Britain. Several show a group of pilots, clutching after-action combat report forms, clustered around their young commander. In his face is etched the physical and mental strain of flying fighters during our Finest Hour. It is a haunting image – which fascinated me as a child.

Used to illustrate countless publications, invariably the photograph appeared with a generic caption failing to identify the exhausted looking squadron leader concerned. One day, I happened across a small firsthand memoir, Spitfire! The Experiences of a Fighter Pilot, by a ‘Squadron Leader B.J. Ellan’, published in 1942. Immediately I realised that ‘B.J. Ellan’ and the squadron commander whose photograph had so moved me were one and the same. I also knew that this was a pseudonym, because by then I had confirmed that this was Squadron Leader Brian John Edward Lane – the exceptional commander of 19 Squadron, who, by the time of the Battle of Britain, had already been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Sadly, I had also discovered that he had been reported Missing in Action on 13 December 1942, aged twenty-five. I resolved there and then to research this young knight of the air’s life and times, rapidly confirming that here was an unsung hero indeed; I would soon discover that there were numerous other forgotten heroes, many of whom I was to meet personally on what became an emotionally-charged journey of discovery. What has left an indelible impression from this experience is the reverence in which all of the elderly and very experienced survivors held the twenty-five-year-old Squadron Leader Brian Lane, whose name was only ever spoken in hushed, respectful tones, the conversation inevitably condemning the wasteful circumstances of his loss.

My original work hoping to record and raise awareness of the story of Brian Lane and 19 Squadron during the early war period, Spitfire Squadron was published in 1990. The book, my first, which included the first reprint of Spitfire!, was well received. During the years ahead, however, I came to enjoy a unique and privileged relationship with both many of the Squadron’s survivors from the traumatic days of 1940, and the families of casualties. Thirty years later we now have here the completely updated and rewritten Spitfire Squadron – with the benefit of a vast amount of extra information and infinitely more experience as an author and historian.

This new version of Spitfire Squadron, incorporating unique first-hand accounts, seeks to locate the whole story within a much wider context, including social, political, aviation and military history. In this way, I hope that we can better understand and appreciate the experience of having served on a Spitfire squadron – indeed the first Spitfire squadron – during the pre- and critical early-Second World War periods. Importantly, the wartime photographs have mainly been copied from the personal albums of survivors and their families, providing an authentic and atmospheric glimpse of the ever-distant past.

Hopefully, the spirits in my rear-view mirror, ever constant companions throughout the writing of this book, will consider that I have done them, their friends, and especially the revered ‘Brian’, justice. You, my readers, can decide.

Dilip Sarkar MBE FRHistS,

Worcester,

15 September 2018

Chapter One

They can because they think they can

Given 19 Squadron’s association with the iconic Supermarine Spitfire, it is entirely appropriate that by sheer coincidence the first incarnation of 19 was formed on 1 September 1915 at Castle Bromwich, Birmingham – where most of the 22,000 Spitfires would one day be built. At that time, during the First World War, the Spitfire was unthought of, the Squadron initially equipped with Maurice Farman, Avro and Caudron biplanes. After flying a succession of different types, eventually 19 re-equipped with the single-engine, single-seat BE12, going off to war in France on 25 July 1916. No. 19 was a fighter squadron, and war would define its existence.

No. 19 Squadron was one of seven new squadrons sent to France as reinforcements during the Battle of the Somme, which began on 24 June 1916 and raged until November, claiming one million lives. On 1 August 1916 the Squadron was ‘employed on offensive patrol and began training in night-flying in order to pursue the policy of allowing the enemy no rest’.¹ A week later 19 flew its first offensive patrol, operating with 27 Squadron, and brought down a German Fokker and Roland aircraft. From then on, the Squadron was ‘engaged in continuous fighting and succeeded in accounting for many enemy machines. Severe casualties were suffered by the Squadron.’² As the carnage continued, it was clear that the BE12 was outclassed by new German fighters, leading to General

figure

The 19 (Fighter) Squadron badge of Sergeant Bernard ‘Jimmy’ Jennings.

Trenchard re-equipping 19 Squadron with the modern and more nimble French-built Spad VII scout. By February 1917 the process was complete.

On 9 April 1917 No. 19 Squadron was committed to the Arras Offensive, in which it saw action in the Battle of Arras and Third Battle of Ypres:

Aerial fighting at this time was very intense. New types of enemy aircraft had appeared and the first ‘circus’ was made use of, commanded by [Manfred] von Richthofen. A circus was simply a formation consisting of about forty-eight machines ... With the arrival of new squadrons flying the DH4, Bristol Fighter and the SE5, the activity of enemy aircraft was considerably lessened.³

Nonetheless, on 29 April 1917, ‘… the Squadron suffered its most serious loss during this period. A patrol consisting of Major H.D. Harvey-Kelly and Lieutenants Hamilton and Applen failed to return. Major Kelly had, while in No. 2 Squadron, taken part in the first aerial battle of the war on 25 August 1914, forcing a German monoplane down by rifle fire, landing beside it and chasing the pilot on foot.’⁴ A story surely direct from the Boy’s Own Paper!

The fighting was relentless. On 7 June 1917 another offensive began, the Battle of Messines:

Much aerial fighting took place. No. 19 Squadron drove down several enemy aircraft. Lieutenant G.S. Buck attacked the aerodrome at Marche from 800 feet, shot down an enemy machine … continued his attack on the sheds and shot up transport on the return journey. During this Messines attack low-flying began seriously and ‘ground-strafing’ played an important part of the work of the Royal Flying Corps.⁵

Two days later, Buck shot down another German aircraft whilst flying a new Spad fitted with forward-firing guns synchronised to shoot through the propeller arc. Interestingly, what would become tactical air co-operation, honed in later wars, was beginning to take shape with RFC squadrons flying in direct support of the infantry. On the Third Battle of Ypres’ first day, for example, 19 Squadron operated at low level, supporting attacking infantry, and strafing enemy positions despite intense anti-aircraft fire. By 14 August 19 was based at Poperinghe, supporting the second attack east of Ypres, the Squadron diary recounting yet more derring-do and tales of aerial combat throughout the bloody weeks ahead.

After a quiet winter, during which 19 re-equipped once more, this time with the Sopwith Dolphin fighter, aerial fighting intensified with ever-improving weather the following spring, the German Spring Offensive starting on 21 March 1918. Involved with the Second Battle of Amiens, 19 was largely engaged on dawn and dusk patrols, and escorting bombers. 1 April 1918 saw a significant event: the RNAS and RFC were amalgamated as the Royal Air Force, the world’s first independent air force. Previously, British military aviation had been delivered by the RFC and Royal Naval Air Service. Now, Major General ‘Boom’ Trenchard, the first Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) was responsible for building an air force with aerodromes and necessary logistics, absorbing both RFC and RNAS squadrons.⁶

On 30 October 1918 ‘Nine Dolphins escorted machines of No. 98 Squadron in a bombing attack on Mons. On the return journey thirty enemy scouts attacked the formation. Eleven enemy aircraft were brought down but five Dolphins failed to return.’⁷ This, however, would be the Squadron’s last engagement of the Great War. At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, the guns at last fell silent: the war that, it was hoped, would ‘end all wars’ was over.

figure

The 19 Squadron badge shows two dolphins – remembering when the Squadron operated the Sopwith Dolphin, a surviving example of which is pictured here at the RAF Museum in 2018 (Paul Heys).

No. 19 (Fighter) Squadron returned to England in February 1919, ‘reduced to a cadre’.⁸ Based at Ternhill in Shropshire, on 31 December 1919, duty done, the Squadron was disbanded, having set a tough benchmark of courage for subsequent incarnations to follow.

In November 1919 Trenchard submitted a White Paper outlining his plan for the peacetime air force. The junior service was to remain independent, and include a substantial proportion of commissioned short-term pilots, a cadet training college for permanent officers, an auxiliary facility, and, amongst other things, a school for aero-engineering apprentices. In 1922 the Lloyd George government became conscious of the fact that whilst the French air force included a striking force of 600 machines, the RAF Home Defence capacity comprised just three squadrons. Consequently it was decided to increase the RAF’s establishment to 500 aircraft at a cost of £1.1m annually.⁹ The RAF, however, was actually fighting a battle for survival in the corridors of Whitehall and Westminster owing to hostility from the more senior services, resentful of having lost their air arms, and given the determination of many to disarm completely. In 1923 the Salisbury Committee, appointed to review and decide upon the air force’s fate, decreed a new and enlarged expansion programme for the RAF. Although this involved increasing establishment to fifty-two Home Defence squadrons, to be complete by 1928, given that war with France was unimaginable, and with no other enemy threatening Britain’s island shores, this ambitious and early expansion plan soon lost momentum. Indeed, peace, not war, was very much in the air following the Western powers’ signing the Locarno Treaty in 1925, binding each other to preserve peace and unite against any would-be aggressor.

Notwithstanding the RAF’s uncertain future and dissipation of the will to expand, on 1 April 1923 No. 19 (Fighter) Squadron’s standard was raised again, on this, the RAF’s fifth anniversary, at a station near Cambridge with which its name would forever become synonymous – Duxford.

Initially attached to No. 2 Flying Training School (FTS) at Duxford, the re-formed fighter squadron immediately began training on single-seat fighters, Sopwith Snipes, and Avro biplanes, later replaced, in December 1924, by Gloster Grebes. During peace, the Squadron trained for war, competing against other squadrons for gunnery, bombing and aerobatic trophies, and, amongst other things, participating in the annual Air Defence of Great Britain (ADGB) exercises and Hendon RAF air displays. There were accidents, however: for example, the new squadron lost its first pilot, Flying Officer R.N.T. Gape, on a training flight on 18 August 1926; on 24 September 1927 a collision occurred between an Avro, piloted by Sergeant O.V. Tostevin with Leading Aircraftman (LAC) Cleland as a passenger under instruction, and a 111 Squadron Siskin, the pilot of which, Sergeant Kelly, was killed (Tostevin was killed in a subsequent mid-air collision on 10 December 1928). On 16 May 1929,

Flying Officer J.W. Bayes and Sergeant Pilot E.G. Parsons competed in a competition held at Northolt by Fighting Area to select a team of two pilots to give a display of aerobatics at the annual RAF display. Flying Officer Bayes was killed as a result of his machine failing to right itself after completing inverted flying.¹⁰

Clearly flying, even without being shot at, could be a hazardous affair. This constant round of exercises and competitions, however, forged the Squadron’s esprit de corps. In February 1932 the Squadron’s identity manifested itself in a new crest, featuring a dolphin flanked by laurels, which adorned all 19’s aircraft, harking back to the original Squadron flying Sopwith Dolphins in the First World War. Later that year the Squadron’s motto was decided: ‘Possunt Quia Posse Videntur’, ¹¹ being a quote from Virgil’s poem the Aeneid and meaning ‘They can because they think they can’. This remained, however, a difficult time for those committed to the United Kingdom’s aerial defence.

On Christmas Eve 1914 the first German bomb had been dropped on England, albeit exploding harmlessly in a Dover garden.¹² From that point onwards Britain’s island nation could no longer rely exclusively upon the Royal Navy for security of base, and the Home Front was now also a front line. These primitive air attacks soon intensified and became more effective: by the Armistice over 100 raids had killed 1,413 people.¹³ For the first time in history London’s underground had provided essential shelter for terrified civilians, the bombing provoking ‘mass panics and near riots’.¹⁴ This developed into a disproportionate fear of air attack, but the air power doctrine emerging between the wars assumed the bomber as supreme. This was unsurprising, because Britain, close to the continent, although surrounded by a moat, was clearly vulnerable to air attack. Although Trenchard had fought to create and preserve the air force, the so-called ‘Father of the Royal Air Force’ was a confirmed ‘Bomber Baron’. Indeed, many influential civilians and militarists firmly believed in the ‘knockout blow’, the single, devastating, strike destroying an enemy’s capacity to fight and delivered from the air – by bombers.¹⁵ Trenchard considered it unnecessary,

for an air force, in order to defeat the enemy nation, to defeat its armed forces first. Air power can dispense with that immediate step, can pass over the enemy navies and armies, and penetrate air defences and attack direct the centre of production, transportation and communication from which the enemy war effort is maintained. It is on the destruction of enemy industries and above all in the lowering of morale of enemy nationals caused by bombing that the ultimate victory lies.¹⁶

In 1932 the British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin told the House of Commons that:

I think it is as well for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can save him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through. The only defence is offence, which means you have to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.¹⁷

No surprise, then, that what little spending there was on defence between the wars was ‘bombercentric’. This is perhaps best explained through Trenchard’s view, expressed in 1921, that fighter aircraft were ‘only necessary to keep up the morale of your own people’.¹⁸ Against such a political landscape, therefore, 19 Squadron had been reborn in 1923, against the odds.

The first half of the 1930s saw Britain and other nations ‘hell-bent’, according to Sir Maurice Dean, ‘for collective security and prepared to accept incalculable risks in that cause’.¹⁹ In 1932 Britain abandoned what had been a miniscule RAF expansion programme. The following year, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazis, became Chancellor of Germany, changing everything. The Führer immediately set about contravening and reversing what were seen as injustices arising from the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, namely restrictions on the German military and territorial concessions. Already Weimar Germany had begun secretly rebuilding its prohibited Luftwaffe, far away from prying western eyes, deep in Soviet Russia. The Great Depression caused by the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929, had not helped, the resulting financial chaos affecting the next decade. The British government, therefore, had serious socio-economic issues to address at home, which it tried its best to do whilst Germany fervently re-armed. Later, Churchill would write that for defence spending, the years 1931-35 were those of the ‘locust’.²⁰ Be that as it may, the complete lack of substantial re-armament and deficiencies on doctrinal thinking were caused by three things: fiscal constraints; political indifference or opposition; and Trenchard’s unshakeable belief in the bomber. By 1935, however, the threat posed by Hitler’s Germany was increasingly plain and could no longer be ignored. At last Britain tentatively, albeit reluctantly, began to re-arm. On 25 February 1936 Expansion Scheme F was approved: 124 squadrons (1,736 aircraft of all types) by April 1937.²¹ Unfortunately, whilst Scheme F increased the bomber force to 1,000 aircraft, the number of fighters was only maintained. Ironically, however, there were concurrently exciting developments in fighter development.

During the 1920s, both financial constraints and, of course, disarmament had severely curtailed resources available to the RAF for research and development, restrictions applying equally to the British aircraft industry generally. Paradoxically, in spite of this, it was actually an exciting time for aviation, thanks to the Schneider Trophy competition. The Frenchman Jacques Schneider, son of an armament manufacturer, was perplexed by the demonstrable fact that although seven-tenths of the world’s surface was covered by water, marine lagged far behind land-based aviation. Schneider saw the sea providing cheap airports with huge potential for aviation and so inaugurated an international air race for seaplanes over a water course measured by fixed points. Whichever nation won the coveted silver trophy three times in five years got to keep it. This was also a period of globally emerging nationalism, meaning that the exciting aerial race became a matter of great national pride. It was this, more than anything else, that drove forward development, leading directly to the fast monoplane fighters of the Second World War. In 1929, the same year that Wall Street crashed, Supermarine’s gifted designer R.J. Mitchell won the trophy for a second consecutive time, with his sleek S.6. Unfortunately, the economic collapse meant no government funding was forthcoming for Supermarine’s next all-important entry. This incensed a wealthy patriot, Lady Houston, who personally funded the £100,000 necessary for Mitchell to compete. Her ladyship’s confidence was well placed: on 12 September 1931 Flight Lieutenant J.N. Boothman flashed over the delighted crowds at 340.08 mph with the throttle not even wide open, winning the Schneider Trophy for Britain once and for all. That afternoon Flight Lieutenant G.H. Stainforth took up another S.6B and set a new world air speed record at 379.05 mph. British aviation was supreme, delighting the depressed nation and arousing the interest of the Air Member for Supply and Research: Air Vice-Marshal Hugh Dowding, whose name would become synonymous with the unprecedented aerial battle for Britain’s survival which lay ahead.

At the time, owing to the development and investment emphasis, bombers were getting faster, able to outpace existing fighter types. When Mitchell won the Schneider Trophy, the Air Defence of Great Britain relied entirely upon biplanes such as the Bristol Bulldog, which was 10 mph slower than the Hawker Hart light bomber introduced in 1929. Although advised by experts that biplanes were superior to monoplanes, Dowding, who had himself flown biplanes during the First World War, disagreed and rightly perceived the monoplane as a major improvement. He also recognised that Mitchell’s more advanced designs used more metal parts than the wood-framed and fabric-covered biplanes, which Dowding saw as a potential advantage in the event of Britain ever being blockaded and timber being in short supply. Dowding believed that the experience of British aircraft designers gained during the Schneider Trophy races could and should be applied to new military, land-based, aircraft. Consequently, starting on 1 October 1931, the Air Ministry issued various specifications for a new fighter, inviting British designers to submit proposals. Eventually, in April 1935, the Air Ministry issued its ‘Requirements for Single-Engine Single-Seater Day and Night Fighter (F.10/35).’ This new aircraft, amongst other things, had to feature eight machine guns, an enclosed cockpit, be capable of at least 310 mph at 15,000 feet, and be at least 40 mph faster than contemporary bombers at that height. Interestingly, though, there was no requirement for the new ‘real killer fighter’ to be a monoplane, indicating not all at Whitehall were as convinced as Dowding that the biplane was obsolete.

On 6 November 1935 Hawker’s Chief Test Pilot, P.W.S. ‘George’ Bulman, successfully flew Sydney Camm’s Hurricane on its maiden flight from Brooklands. The flight was successful and, on 3 June 1936, the Air Ministry ordered 600 of the new type, the largest such order to date and indicative of the growing concern regarding German re-armament by this time. That concern was fully justified. The same year Hitler revealed his new Luftwaffe to a disbelieving world in contemptuous disregard of Versailles and the western nations. In May 1935 Professor Willy Messerschmitt’s new monoplane fighter, the 109, had flown for the first time. Messerschmitt had followed a simple principle: the smallest and lightest airframe built around the most powerful engine. It would prove a formidable adversary. On 6 March 1936 another little British monoplane fighter flew for the first time, this time Mitchell’s Type 300, better known as the Spitfire, from Eastleigh, Southampton. On 3 June 1936 the Air Ministry also ordered 310 Spitfires from Supermarine, at a cost of £4,500 each. According to popular myth, delivery of those machines was delayed by the Spitfire’s advanced design, but more accurately this was because Supermarine, a comparatively small company, lacked the facilities and resources for mass production. Camm’s Hurricane, the first of the new British fighters to fly, was also first to reach the RAF when 111 Squadron at Northolt took delivery of the first production machine in November 1937. By then, whilst RAF pilots made the quantum leap from biplane to modern monoplane and learned how to fly their very different and more advanced machines, the Me 109 was already available in numbers and being blooded in aerial combat over Spain as Hitler’s Condor Legion supported the fascist General Franco in a bitter civil war. The Spitfire, already supreme in the public’s imagination owing to its victorious Schneider Trophy lineage, would not be received by the RAF until 4 August 1938, a date indelibly etched, for reasons we will in due course explore, into 19 Squadron’s proud history. First, however, we need to back-track to Expansion Scheme F of 1936.

With the reluctant acceptance that expansion of the RAF was as essential as it was necessary, so too had dawned the fact that extra personnel, particularly aircrew, would be required – not just more aircraft. Of huge significance is that Scheme F led directly to creation of the RAF Volunteer Reserve, which planned to recruit and train a total of 8,100 pilots, observers and wireless operator/air gunners by the end of 1938. From the regular service, 4,000 more pilots and 1,264 observers were required in the years 1936-39. It was this expansion, and ultimately the war, which would change the small and somewhat exclusive peacetime RAF’s social composition. This is very important to help us really understand the dynamics of 19 Squadron’s personnel in the story ahead. To fully appreciate this, we need also to look not just at air doctrine and aircraft development, but also at what was a deeply hierarchical society, how this was reflected in the service, and especially how expansion and war wrought change, providing hitherto unprecedented opportunities for certain social classes, virtually all of which were, in due course, represented in 19 Squadron.

Upon formation the RAF was modelled upon the British Army’s organisation and rank structure. Army officers were trained at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, which was, according to James, ‘for gentlemen who could afford to pay the fees’.²² Those ‘gentlemen’ had exclusively been educated privately at public schools, as were RAF officers between the wars. Indeed, Branson and Heinemann describe a society ‘still stratified into layers divided by rigid class barriers’.²³ Air force officers were trained at the fee-paying RAF College Cranwell, meaning the commissions, legal authority granted by the sovereign to bear arms and issue orders to subordinates, were effectively bought.²⁴ Cost, in fact, dominated entry to all of the professions, preserving them, like commissions, for those who could afford the fees. Coming from a family of means able to fund a private education prompted Mowat to ask ‘Did the public schoolboy enjoy advantages beyond his desserts in public and professional life?’²⁵ According to Branson and Heinemann, in 1937, 35.7 per cent of the population earned under £2. 10s. per week; 37.8 per cent earned between that figure and £4; 21.3 per cent earned between £4 and £10, but only 5.2 per cent earned over £10. The lowest wage-earners represented 4,318,000 families, whilst the top earnings concerned just 635,000.²⁶ Moreover, by one estimate in 1935, less than half of working-class children of ‘higher ability’ were receiving a secondary, state-funded, education, which was the minimum standard for any kind of advancement, even if not socially, ²⁷ leading Pugh to conclude that ‘interwar Britain was still a very undereducated society’.²⁸

From 1905 onwards, all public schools had Officer Training Corps (OTC), delivering a specific military syllabus and examination. Those who passed were awarded Certificate A, armed with which, together with a good school report and an application countersigned by any colonel, were entitled to a commission as of right.²⁹ Trenchard modelled the new RAF’s system on this long-established tradition, preserving commissions for the upper classes. Indeed, before the Second World War ‘the RAF had no definition of leadership’; such ‘skills were absorbed rather than taught, and the services reflected the social attitudes of the time, which were rather more inclined to assume leadership on the basis of social class’.³⁰ In Trenchard’s new service this also extended to flying: all pilots were to be officers, ³¹ commissioned into the General Duties (flying) branch. The ability to fly is, of course, over and above the traditional officer function of leading men in battle. Aircrew are, in fact, a breed apart as Wells explained, ‘From the earliest days of aviation, airmen have been regarded as members of an élite group … it took a special type of man to brave the obvious perils.’³² The training of Trenchard’s officers was undertaken at the RAF College Cranwell, although flight cadets, according to Air Vice-Marshal H.A.V. Hogan, which he was himself between 1929 and 1930, were not at Cranwell ‘because we wanted to be leaders of men, but simply because we wanted to fly!’³³

Nonetheless, enthusiasm for aviation and a burning ambition to fly was not enough: the fees payable to attend Cranwell were substantial, the amount involved preserving the pilot’s cockpit for the British socioeconomic pyramid’s top 5.2 per cent. Means, however, may have opened the door to a commission but it could not automatically assume the ability to fly: the failure rate in flying training was 50 per cent, so a privileged social and educational background was no guarantee towards receiving the coveted flying brevet.³⁴

Cranwell, however, was too small to produce the quantity of pilots required by the RAF. In 1921, contrary to his original elitist vision for officer pilots, Trenchard, to both achieve the number of pilots he needed and create a trained reserve, began training a small number of non-commissioned officers (NCO) as pilots. The concept was that these men would fly for five years before resuming their original trades, whilst eligible for recall to flying duties in the event of an emergency. The initiative was both popular and economic, but numbers remained small: in 1925, 13.9 per cent of pilots were NCOs, rising to 17.1 per cent in 1935.³⁵ Trenchard’s next initiative was revolutionary: Short Service Commissions (SSC). In the senior services officers usually served for the duration of their working lives (hence the term ‘permanent commission’). This, however, led to a ‘dead man’s shoes’ situation, which Trenchard wished to avoid given that flying is obviously a young man’s activity. The SSC scheme, therefore, provided for officers to serve a fixed contract of four years’ active service, followed by six on the reserve list. Such officers were only eligible to promotion so far as flight lieutenant but could transfer to a permanent commission upon successfully passing the required examination.³⁶ Together with direct entrants from the University Air Squadrons (UAS), SSC officers were not trained at Cranwell, which remained exclusively for professional career officers, but at Service Flying Training Schools (SFTS). Interestingly, the minimum entry requirement for a SSC was the School Certificate, obtainable not just at public but also grammar schools. Nonetheless, it was still assumed that ‘all applicants would come from the social class that filled the public schools’.³⁷ Furthermore, the Direct Entry Scheme (DES) provided a small number of permanent commissions offered to university graduates via competition for limited places.

Another sound initiative was creation of the Auxiliary Air Force (AAF) in 1924, based upon the territorial concept; by 1930 such squadrons comprised 5 per cent of the air force’s strength. There was no question, though, that auxiliary officers would be anything but public schoolboys. If Cranwellians were drawn from Britain’s socio-economic élite, then auxiliaries were the élite of the élite. The AAF, however, so far as the composition of personnel was concerned, did not affect or concern 19 Squadron before the Second World War. What very much did, though, was the most significant and forward-thinking feature of 1936’s Expansion Scheme F: recognition that a trained reserve was essential, leading to creation of the RAF Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR), intended to,

have wide appeal based upon the Citizen Volunteer principal with a common mode of entry and promotion and commissioning on merit … So far as aircrew training was concerned, the system was based upon local town centres for spare time ground training and upon aerodrome centres associated with the town centres for flying training at the weekend, also for a fortnight’s annual camp.³⁸

Again, commissions were available to all with a School Certificate. All such volunteer aircrew were automatically made sergeants, much to the chagrin of professional NCOs who had taken years to attain that exalted rank. The RAFVR, however, was a huge step forward to seeing fighter pilots and leaders selected not on the basis of social class but on ability.

This, then, is the background to 19 Squadron’s officers and pilots before the Second World War, and in the following pages we will meet men who became pilots via various routes and from diverse backgrounds. Now, let us return to 19 Squadron, at Duxford, during the 1930s, a decade described by Mowat as the ‘devil’s decade’.³⁹

Whilst the RAF expanded, life for 19 Squadron continued unchanged. By now the Squadron was operating the Gloster Gauntlet, with which it re-equipped on 25 May 1935. Another pretty little biplane, the Gauntlet was no match for the Me 109. Nonetheless, there was great interest and national pride in the RAF, the Empire Air Day and Hendon Air Pageant being hugely popular events, showcasing the service and exciting the aviation-minded public. On 23 May 1936, for example, Duxford was open to the public for that year’s Empire Air Day, at which the Squadron demonstrated ‘flight attacks and aerobatics’.⁴⁰ On 27 June Flight Lieutenant Harry Broadhurst, already a well-known RAF personality destined for a distinguished career, ‘gave the advanced flying demonstration and A Flight carried out the flight aerobatic event’ at the Hendon RAF Display.⁴¹ There were also important visitors: on 3 December 1936 ‘Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding KCB CMG, visited the station to present the Squadron badge to No. 19 (Fighter) Squadron’.⁴² Air Marshal Dowding was now Air Officer-Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, which is deserving of explanation.

When Britain belatedly began re-arming in 1935, air defence was coordinated by the Air Defence of Great Britain (ADGB). In 1936 it was sensibly decided to separate this unwieldy command into two: Fighter and Bomber Commands. Thus, Fighter Command was created on 6 July 1936, with its headquarters at Bentley Priory, to the North of London. On 14 July Dowding was appointed the first Commander-in-Chief. This re-organisation provided an unprecedented opportunity to overhaul and revise the nation’s air defences, giving Dowding freedom to harness sophisticated science and techniques into the mix. For this task, as previously Air Member for Research and Development, involved in the commissioning of both new monoplane fighters and Radio Direction Finding (RDF, better known as radar), there could have been no better choice. Unlike many of his peers, Dowding had always been a champion of air defence, arguing against Trenchard’s obsession with offence, steadfastly maintaining his unshakeable belief that ‘security of the base must come first’⁴³:

The best defence of the country is fear of the fighter. If we are strong in fighters we should probably never be attacked in force. If we are moderately strong we shall probably be attacked and the attacks will gradually be brought to a standstill … . If we are weak in fighter strength, the attacks will not be brought to a standstill and the productive capacity of the country will be virtually destroyed.⁴⁴

Here, then, at last, was a man with the experience and vision necessary to prepare Britain to resist determined air attack.

On 1 January 1937 the first names appear on 19 Squadron’s list of pilots with whom we will become increasingly familiar in the pages and battles ahead: Sergeants George Cecil Unwin and Harry Steere.⁴⁵

Both George Unwin and Harry Steere were professional airmen who had benefited from Trenchard’s decision to train a small number of NCO pilots. Both were tough northerners from working-class backgrounds. Unwin was a miner’s son, born on 18 January 1913, at Bolton-on-Deane, Yorkshire, and fortunate to attend the local grammar school. In April 1929 the young Yorkshireman joined the RAF as an apprentice clerk, his first posting being to RAF Records, Ruislip. Two years later he was an LAC, and serving as a clerk at HQ Fighting Area, Uxbridge. Anyone who knew George would agree that such a mundane role would not have been his ideal. Consequently, he applied for pilot training, was accepted, and began his elementary flying training course at Woodley on 25 November 1935. After completing his service flying training at Wittering, Sergeant Unwin was posted to 19 Squadron. Steere was from Wallasey on the Wirral, born on 7 February 1914, and educated at Oldershaw Secondary School. Technically minded, he became an aircraft apprentice at RAF Halton, better known as a ‘Trenchard Brat’, in September 1930. An LAC Metal Rigger,

figure

19 Squadron’s Gauntlet fighters, at the time of Munch, 1938. From left: Pilot Officers Pace, Robinson and Thomas, and Sergeants Coleman and Potter (Sylvia Lewis).

figure

19 Squadron Gauntlets at Duxford, 1937 (Sylvia Lewis).

figure

Gauntlets in 19 Squadron’s Duxford hangar, 1937 (Sylvia Lewis).

Steere was also accepted for and successfully passed flying training, joining 19 Squadron as a sergeant-pilot.

Sergeant George Unwin:

Harry was my great friend on 19, fellow sergeant-pilots, similar age, we lived and flew together. We met during ab initio flying training in 1935. In those days the RAF was still quite small, like an exclusive flying club, I suppose, and on the ground, we were segregated according to rank and status: officers to the Officers’ Mess, we sergeant-pilots to the Sergeants’ Mess. Harry and I therefore spent a lot of time together. In fact, we flew together up to mid-1943, when he went to fly Mosquitos, and shared a house in Montrose before that.⁴⁶

On 24 May 1937 Pilot Officer Eric Hugh Thomas joined the Squadron, a SSC officer.⁴⁷ On 30 June, two more SSC officers arrived, the Auckland-born New Zealander Pilot Officer Wilfred Greville Clouston, and Pilot Officer T.G. Pace. Pilot Officer James Baird Coward also joined on an SSC, reporting to 19, after successfully completing his flying training at Anstey and Digby, on 6 September 1937:

Shortly after my twenty-first birthday in 1936, I applied for a SSC in the RAF. My father had gone broke in the depression, so I had to leave school aged fifteen. I went up to the Air Ministry and after a short wait was shown into a room where there were three group captains sitting at a table. The one in the middle asked me what games I played. ‘Rugby and cricket, Sir.’

‘Go down the corridor and see the doctor.’ I was astonished. I was in!

It was very pleasant at Duxford because it was a small Mess, brand new, lovely rooms with fitted wardrobes and washbasins. It was absolute luxury. One was woken up in the morning with a cup of tea, they ran you a bath and while you were having it your uniform would be pressed, buttons and shoes polished. Then you went down to breakfast. There was a great hotplate along the side with a choice of eggs, bacon, kippers, herrings or kedgeree, or anything. It was a beautifully run Mess with excellent food. There were no senior people, and no air traffic control. The Mess was full of young chaps. We dined in four nights a week, in full mess kit. In the mornings, all we had to do was parade and march the airmen down to the flights, and then fly a lovely fighter all day or as often as we could. We had squash and tennis courts, played games on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, and on Sunday there was a church parade. We had the Gloster Gauntlet aircraft, which was easy and very pleasant to fly.⁴⁸

Pilot Officer Gordon Leonard Sinclair, reporting for duty on 6 December 1937, had an interesting route to the cockpit.⁴⁹ Born in Eastbourne on 15 August 1916, his father was an Inniskilling Dragoons officer, so, educated at Eastbourne College, the young Sinclair was brought up with military influence. In February 1935 he became a gunner in the Honourable Artillery Company, a prestigious London-based Territorial unit, then successfully applied for an SSC and completed flying training at Anstey and South Cerney. Yet another 19 Squadron stalwart and SSC officer arrived on 19 February 1938: Pilot Officer George Eric Ball, ⁵⁰ another name soon to become synonymous with Duxford during the early war period. Previously, on 21 December 1937, 19 Squadron received a new Officer Commanding (OC): Squadron Leader Henry Iliffe Cozens, who officially succeeded Squadron Leader J.W. Turton-Jones on 4 January 1938.⁵¹ 1938 would prove to be a memorable year for 19 Squadron: exciting times were ahead.

figure

19 Squadron at Duxford, 1938. From left, back row: Flying Officer Gordon, Pilot Officer Banham, Squadron Leader Cozens, Pilot Officer Sinclair. Middle row, from left: Pilot Officers Ball, Coward, Clouston and Pace. Front row, from left: Pilot Officers Robinson, Withall, Mee and Lewis (Sylvia Lewis).

figure

From the album of 19 Squadron’s Pilot Officer Eric Thomas, a 46 Squadron Gauntlet II up from Digby in 1938 (Sylvia Lewis).

figure

Pilot Officer Eric Thomas, in pre-war white flying overalls, at Duxford in 1938 with his dog, ‘Nimbus I’ – with whom he flew many times, along with subsequent pets, each of whom had their own log books! (Sylvia Lewis).

figure

Pilot Officer Eric Thomas at Duxford in 1938, outside 19 Squadron’s officers, attached to the Squadron’s hangar (Sylvia Lewis).

figure

The RAF College, Cranwell (Sylvia Lewis).

A Londoner and unmarried man, Cozens was educated at St Dunstan’s College, Catford. Upon leaving, in 1923, he also obtained an SSC, at a time when competition was fierce given that the so-called ‘Geddes Axe’ had reduced the RAF from 188 to 25 squadrons. Having gained his wings in 1924, two years later Cozens was selected for the two-year engineering course at Henlow, upon completion of which he achieved a degree in mechanical sciences from Cambridge. In 1930 he was seconded to the British Arctic Air Expedition to Greenland, which was investigating its potential as a staging post for civilian transatlantic flights. Cozens was the expedition’s photographer and film-maker, something in which he developed a lifelong interest and received the Polar Medal in Silver in recognition of his Arctic efforts. Upon return to the UK, he flew biplane fighters with 25 Squadron at Hawkinge before being posted to Calshot, where he flew Supermarine Southampton flying boats designed by none other than R.J. Mitchell. Having been permanently commissioned, Cozens then served in Iraq and went through the RAF Staff College, Andover, before taking over 19 Squadron. At that time, 19 was still operating the Gloster Gauntlet biplane. Cozens was acutely aware that whilst the public’s perception of the RAF was of a highly-trained elite, in an atmosphere of disarmament and retrenchment its biplane fighters were hopelessly outclassed by