The Squadron That Died Twice

by Gordon Thorburn

  The aircraft had been built by A V Roe at Chadderton, Oldham, which was where Herbert Doughty came from. His younger brother, Joseph, trained as a pilot and was killed in a 9 Squadron Wellington, lost without trace age twenty on 9 March 1942. Thus it was for families with boys who wanted to fly.

  Magrath and James eventually reached England via Gibraltar, only the third and fourth British servicemen to make it home after escaping from German imprisonment. They did it under great physical handicap and both were awarded the Military Medal in recognition of their extraordinary feat.

  Magrath returned to flying duties at a training unit but was grounded by medical staff. No longer aircrew, he had to take a pay cut, which aggrieved him greatly. His case was taken up by a sympathetic officer and he was commissioned into the Administrative and Special Duties Branch where he trained in flight control. He left the RAF after the war as Squadron Leader Magrath MM.

  Oliver Barton James, Bill Magrath’s escape companion, was fitted with a prosthetic arm and as Flying Officer James MM, DFM, married to Sylvia, was killed on 4 October 1943 with 245 Squadron, 2nd Tactical Air Force, flying a Hawker Typhoon fighter attacking the retreating German army.

  John Bristow continued his wireless-building career in Stalag Luft 3 and other camps. He and his magic contrivances were discovered several times but he just went back on the job and gained such a reputation that the Germans called him Radio Bristoff and kept a special eye on him. One of his inventions, a radio inside an accordion, was placed in a German museum. Two more, his billy-can radio, built inside a German mess tin, and his gramophone radio, can be seen in the museum at RAF Hendon. He also made models out of anything he could find, and even a medical device, a pneumothorax apparatus copied from a diagram in a medical book, which was used to treat prisoners with lung infections.

  At the end of the war, he went through the same suffering as so many POWs, being force-marched from pillar to post by the Germans before being liberated by the British army.

  Bill Greenwood, taken prisoner in 1940, passed some of his five years in POW camps by writing more letters to his pre-Ålborg favourite, the Hollywood singing star Deanna Durbin.

  Dear Deanna,

  Here I am writing to you once again but from Germany this time. I was shot down 13th August in Denmark and I am lucky to be alive because I came down in flames, then crashed. The only injury I have is my right ankle which was broken in three places by a bullet, but will be OK in another fortnight’s time. When you answer will you please send me another snapshot of yourself because I lost all I had when I crashed in the water.

  In this hospital where I am at present, we are well fed & treated. I don’t have to work unless we want that is because we are sergeants. I hope you are still doing alright in films, and you will always be the tops with your looks & your voice you can’t be anything else. I am looking forward to the day when you and I will meet, which will be another 5 years at the least, unless you come to England before that. I don’t know what the weather is like in America, but here it is getting colder every day & another two or three weeks should bring the snow along. Would you please write to me every fortnight or at least once a month. I will be doing the same to you.

  Close, wishing you and your FATHER and MOTHER the best of luck, Health and Happiness always.

  Your Very Sincerely

  Bill

  Sgt. W. Greenwood, 646876, R.A.F. Dulag Luft Germany 3 Oct 1940

  Air Force Transit camp B

  And she did write too, and the correspondence continued, sometimes through an amanuensis but obviously enough to keep Bill keen. They never met, though, and Deanna Durbin – at one point the highest paid actress in Hollywood with the world’s biggest fan club – retired from acting and singing in 1949.

  John Oates was repatriated in 1943 via Sweden. As he left German custody, he was handed the ten shilling note that had been confiscated in 1940. He spent 18 months in hospital in England before rejoining his dairy firm. His camp commandant at Kassel had been a particularly civil and civilised man called Ritter. After the war, Oates wrote to him to thank him for his sympathetic treatment. When they met, years later, Ritter said that the letter had cleared him of charges of being a Nazi.

  In 1943, the USAAF took over the RAF Watton base and built a concrete runway over a mile long, a perimeter track and fifty dispersal ‘parking places’. It became the main depot for repairing and servicing the B-24 Liberators of the 2nd Air Division. It was also the base for the 25th Bombardment Group (Reconnaissance), which flew many special photographic and weather-information missions in advance of bombing raids. Their aircraft included the B17 Flying Fortress and de Havilland Mosquito.

  After the war, the RAF used the station in one way or another for more than forty years, then the army had it briefly. It is now a housing estate and farmland although, at the time of writing, most of the runway is still there, as is the case with so many of the old USAAF bases in East Anglia.

  In September 1995, routine works at Ålborg Airport uncovered some bits and pieces of metal that must have come from an aircraft. The airport’s management were lucky to have such an expert on call as Ole Rønnest who, sure from the position of the wreckage that he was looking at Blenheim R3821 UX/N, had the initial concern that there might be unexploded munitions.

  With the help of the army bomb-disposal people, the site was excavated and various aircraft parts were found that confirmed the identity of R3821. A few personal belongings were also discovered, including an identity bracelet engraved ‘A E Boland S31257 C of E’. The bearer’s religion – Church of England – on his ID bracelet was an instruction on the type of appropriate burial. There were human remains too. The Germans had not done a thorough job. These remains were interred at the Vadum cemetery.

  In early 1941, 82 Squadron was assigned mainly to attack enemy shipping in the English Channel and North Sea. A detachment was sent to Malta in May 1941, with the rest of the squadron following in June. Flying against shipping and ports, such heavy losses were suffered that the whole unit was brought back home.

  No. 82 Squadron was moved out of Bomber Command in 1942 and sent to India to fight the Japanese, equipped with the American A-35 Vengeance dive-bomber, at first deployed on anti-submarine patrols and, later on, targets in Burma. Still in the Far East but now with the de Havilland Mosquito, the squadron was disbanded in March 1946, to be reformed at RAF Benson with Lancasters and Spitfires, then moved to African survey duties.

  No. 82 entered the jet age in 1953 with the Canberra, to be disbanded again in July 1956, and reformed in July 1959 as a Thor missile unit. This type of intermediate range missile was made obsolete by the ICBM and the squadron was disbanded for the final time in July 1963.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Barker, Ralph, That Eternal Summer: Unknown Stories From the Battle of Britain, Collins, 1990

  Becker, Cajus, trs. and ed. Ziegler, Frank, The Luftwaffe War Diaries, Macdonald, 1964

  Bowyer, Michael J F, 2 Group RAF: A Complete History, Faber & Faber, 1974

  Chorley, W R, Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War, Vol. 1, 1939–1940, Crécy, 1992

  Franks, Norman, Valiant Wings: Battle and Blenheim Squadrons Over France, Kimber, 1988

  Middlebrook, Martin and Everitt, Chris, The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book, 1939–1945, Viking, 1985

  Passmore, Richard, Blenheim Boy, Harmsworth, 1981

  Rønnest, Ole, The Doomed Squadron (Den dømte eskadrille), 2007

  Alan J Brown’s website: ajbrown.me.uk

  Standard equipment for 82 Squadron in the First World War, the Armstrong Whitworth FK8 was a fairly big beast for its time. Like all British aircraft not specifically designed as fighters, it was expected to do everything else while defending itself, including bombing, reconnaissance, artillery spotting, ground-troops support, supplies dropping, tactical photography and anything more called for by the army. On a still day, loaded only with crew, it could make 95mph in level flight. />
  The Mark I Blenheim was a revolution that had been too long coming. It was fast for its time and met all the specifications for a tactical light/medium bomber, but insufficient thought had been given to the way crews would have to operate in war.

  You can see why people found the Blenheim so exciting. This, the Handley Page Heyford Mark III, was still in RAF service when the Blenheim came on strength. It could not get to Germany and back with a decent load of bombs, and top speed was 142mph, much less when loaded.

  Paddy Delap brought back this photograph of U31 to much excitement. Nobody in the RAF had sunk a U-boat before or, indeed, any kind of warship in open sea, or on purpose. Delap had the DFC for it, and his crew each had the DFM.

  From the left, in front of a Blenheim: Sq/ Ldr Walter Sutcliffe DFC, W/C Paddy Bandon, F/O Robert McConnell, F/O D A Fordham, F/Lt George Hall. McConnell and Fordham would be shot down on 17 May, both surviving. Hall, promoted to Squadron Leader and transferred to 110 Squadron, would be killed in action, his Blenheim shot down by flak over the Somme.

  The abandoned earl in peacetime authority (left), in the 1960s and at the top of the RAF, enjoys a joke as ever as he makes a return visit to RAF Watton.

  F/O Lart spent the first and lengthiest part of his air force career at Kohat in India (now in Pakistan), not far from the Afghan border and the Khyber Pass. Squadron equipment was the DH9A (flying photo), then the Westland Wapiti.

  The squadron reborn – the replacement aircraft after Gembloux, photographed at Watton in July 1940 by 82 Squadron observer Sgt Bish Bareham. R3802 UX/A would be Ellen’s machine at Ålborg, R3904 UX/K Newland’s, R3821 UX/N Hale’s.

  Me109 pilot of 5 Staffel, Jagdgeschwader 77, Gefreiter (Cpl) Heinrich Brunsmann, took part in the fight on 13 August but, according to him, did not score. This was one of his first operations and, in the excitement of closing in on a vulnerable Blenheim, he forgot to remove the safety catch.

  Armourers sorting out cannon and machine-gun ammunition, ready for loading into the fighters. The two Me109 in the picture both flew in the battle of 13 August.

  A Danish policeman looks grimly at a German photographer as two more of the occupying troops make the necessary notes. This is the remainder of the tail section of T1993, perhaps arranged neatly for the picture having fallen some yards away from the rest of the machine.

  As well as the many official photographs taken at this fine PR opportunity, there was at least one amateur with an eye for a picture. Here we see R3800 UX/Z in its final dive, upside down, before hitting the fjord shore not far from the sea-plane base. The photographer would have seen two parachutists emerge, so he might well have known that inside ‘his’ Blenheim there was a third man.

  Sgts Blair, Magrath and Greenwood survived this crash. This photograph was taken by Eghold resident Henry Jensen who, like anyone looking at it, must have wondered how anyone could have lived through such a catastrophic event. He knew first-hand that they had, as he had been among the helpers who brought the three airmen ashore.

  F/Lt Syms, ankle broken in his parachute jump, is provided with a much needed smoke by his German guard, who looks out towards the sea-plane base.

  His German captors seem rather more amused at the situation than does Sgt Wright, Syms’s observer.

  Germans dragging a body from the crater made by R3821 UX/N. There is very little left that is recognisable as an aircraft part and, obviously, no possibility of a man surviving such an impact. Satisfied that they had found enough of Hale, Oliver and Boland to make decent burials, the Germans bulldozed the crater flat.

  Looking for ways of identifying the aircraft and the bodies within, German soldiers search the crash site of T1827 UX/H. The river in the background is the Ryå, which flows south past Åbybro and into the fjord. About 100 yards away, out of sight top left, is the wreckage of R3802 UX/A, F/Lt Ellen.

  This is all that was left of T1889, John Oates’s machine, flown down the village high street and dumped in a field.

  The pilots of 5 Staffel/JG77 are saluted by their Gruppenkommandeur, Major Hentschel. (Confusingly, the Luftwaffe term ‘Gruppe’ corresponds more to an RAF wing, about 35 aircraft, whereas the RAF had two sorts of Group. The fighter group was equated by ‘Geschwader’, 100+ aircraft; the other was the much larger division of Bomber Command.) From left: Oberfeldwebel (equivalent F/Sgt) Menge, who claimed four Blenheims shot down in the three minutes between 12.15 and 12.18. Next is Feldwebel (Sgt) Petermann, who claimed three Blenheims, times unspecified, then Unteroffizier (also Sgt) Eisseler, two Blenheims at 12.22 and 12.25. Unteroffizier Fröse had one, Gefreiter (Cpl) Brunsmann none, Gefreiter Esser one, Unteroffizier Schmidt two. Not in the picture is the squadron commander, Oberstleutnant (Lt-Col) Friedrich, who claimed two. Total claims fifteen; actual kills, six.

  This crew, photographed a few days before Ålborg and replaced on the morning of the raid by Hale and crew, are, from left, Sgt McFarlane, Sgt Eames, P/O Wellings.

  As well as the bodies of 82 Squadron men buried here at Vadum, there are four from 102 Squadron, killed in a Whitley bomber 26 April 1940, and six from 10 Squadron, killed in a Halifax bomber 15 October 1944.

  Friends reunited: 82 Squadron officers at Oflag 9A, Schloss Spangenberg, an ancient Disney-like castle on a wooded hill. Shortly after the officers left, American bombers flattened it but it was rebuilt in the 1950s and now serves gourmet meals to voluntary guests. From left: P/O Biden, F/Lt Syms, P/O Newland, F/Lt Ellen, F/O McKenzie, P/O Toft, F/Lt Keighley, Sq/Ldr Wardell. All but Toft, McKenzie and Keighley were shot down at Ålborg. Toft’s Blenheim was one of the first to go down at Gembloux; he managed to jump before the aircraft exploded in mid-air, but his crew were killed. F/O McKenzie crashed in the Somme on an anti-tank raid, one crew member killed, and F/Lt Keighley came down in the sea off the Dutch coast after trying to find a German target, also one man dead.

  John Bristow’s POW photograph, taken by the Germans with him clearly in a good mood. Prisoners captured so early in the war faced a long confinement, and many ingenious ways were developed for passing the time in a way that might be productive for the Allied cause. He made all sorts of useful and entertaining objects out of metal scraps and whatever he could find or scrounge off the guards; two of his masterpieces can be seen at the RAF Museum, Hendon.

  A good sportsman, Gus Beeby played cricket and football for Ashbourne Grammar School. He joined the RAF in January 1939 and so was one of the many fully trained, professional men that the service could ill afford to lose in those early days of the war. He was shot down over France, but made his way home again, to become the favoured WOp/AG of the new squadron CO, W/C Lart.

  Alf Boland, from Hull, flew with several skippers before ending up as Hale’s WOp/AG.

  In June 1940, George Oliver flew nine ops and married an Exeter girl, Joyce Madge. We don’t know the wedding day but Sgt Oliver does seem to have had a week’s leave between ops on the 15th and 24th. He joined Earl Hale’s crew in July, with Alf Boland in the turret.

  Earl Hale, from Saskatchewan, when in RAF training flew his aircraft into the bomb dump. Recovered from massive injuries, he came to 82 Squadron in July 1940.

  Ulsterman Bill Magrath would become one of the first Allied airmen to escape from a German POW camp and make it home, but his crash injuries prevented more flying duty so he went into flight control as an officer. He left the RAF as Squadron Leader Magrath MM, and was later Mayor of Salisbury.

  John Oates left school at 14 and took a job as an office boy on 12 shillings a week. While learning to fly, he turned a milk round into a sizeable dairy business.

  Edmund Lart, the thinking man’s Wing Commander, would have realised that his orders to attack Ålborg were the combined result of desperation and muddled tactics. He knew what the chances were, for himself and his squadron, but if he paid any mind to the black day at Gembloux, it didn’t deter him. He and his men were at war with the Hun, for King and country, and that was all that mattered.

  Thim Biden, ob
server, was on his first trip with Oates; his experience before this had consisted of three cloudless turn-backs and the cloud-ruined high-level at Haamstede, all with F/Lt Syms.

  Norfolk boy Sgt Leslie Youngs, age 21, was observer in Blenheim T1933, the first to go down. He jumped from the aircraft but his parachute failed to open and he was killed instantly on impact.

  Tom Girvan, age 19 when he died, WOp/AG with Sq/Ldr Wardell, is seen standing left in a family photo. Brother Hugh served in the army right through the war. Tom was still in training here yet to earn his aircrew badge and sergeant’s stripes

  Bill Greenwood, taken prisoner in 1940, had almost five years in POW camps. This is his ID photo, taken by the Germans. He passed some of the time by writing letters to the Hollywood singing star Deanna Durbin.