Activities back at base were now focused on the impending move to Italy and all leave was cancelled from the second week of January. The final operation from Tocra for the Storey crew was another attempt to drop supplies to Mostyn Davies and his MULLIGATAWNY Mission, which was now very close to the Bulgarian border, having walked through the mountains with their pack mules for eleven weeks, battered by wind, rain and snow and badly in need of supplies. The Chalk and Harding crews had been the last to get supplies to them on the 20th December, but the noise of the aircraft had caught the attention of the Bulgarians and the team on the ground were caught up in a skirmish, which forced them to bury most of their stores and move oniii. Now, on the 18th January, five aircraft were heading back to the desolate border region of Eastern Serbia to drop supplies and infiltrate a support Mission by the name of CLARIDGE, comprising Major Frank Thompson and Signalman Watts, who were to be dropped at the same Dobro Polje dropping ground. With Thompson and Watts on board the Fortune aircraft and the Storey, Edwards, Harding and Botham crews carrying supplies, they each arrived over the target to find thick cloud-cover, and none of them were able to spot signal fires. Tom descended to 7000ft in an attempt to get below the cloud, but decided to abort when he spotted a mountain peak penetrating the cloud layer. He would not have seen the fires anyway because they had not been lit, owing to a mix-up between Cairo and the Mission, and all five aircraft turned back and landed at Brindisi. JN888 was declared unserviceable after the sortie and the crew returned to base as passengers on the Edwards aircraft, leaving JN888 to be flown back to Tocra a couple of days later by Group Captain Rankin, officer commanding 334 Wing, who was busy making arrangements for the Squadron move to Brindisi. The ferrying of stores, equipment, and personnel now began in earnest, with the Halifax crews making a couple of trips each, and Flight Lieutenant Tupper in the Squadron’s Liberator, making eighteen trips. Most of the personnel were transported this way, with the remainder going by sea. The upheaval meant that there was no operational flying at all between the 22nd and 31st January. So with 148 Squadron out of action, it was down to 624 Special Duty Squadron to drop the CLARIDGE Mission of Thompson and Watts, and this they did on the 25th January, with the aircraft of Pilot Officer Garnet carrying the personnel and two further aircraft carrying the supplies for MULLIGATAWNYiv. As these crews arrived back at their Brindisi base having successfully completed the operation, a new crew had just arrived from England – that of Flight Sergeant Edward Tennant, whose time with the Squadron was to be tragically short.
Further supplies for MULLIGATAWNY and CLARIDGE were flown in by the Storey, Fairweather, and Chalk crews when the Squadron resumed operations at the beginning of February, but this minor relief could not save MULLIGATAWNY and CLARIDGE from complete disaster. Apart from the impossible task of supplying these operations adequately over the winter months, the strength of partisan support had been misjudged, and they met with strong opposition, which they were unprepared for. They had been set an impossible task. Mostyn Davies was killed in a skirmish the following month and, although Frank Thompson narrowly escaped on that occasion, he was wounded and captured very soon after when he moved over the border into Bulgaria with his partisan group. He was later shot by firing squad, along with his partisan leaders and villagers who had helped them. The entire MULLIGATAWNY Mission, with their courageous leader Mostyn Davies, perished in Bulgaria, as did the young Frank Thompson of CLARIDGE Mission.
The Fairweather crew, who had brought relief to that embattled Mission, were themselves killed just five months later on a disastrous night when the Squadron lost four crews, including that of Squadron Leader Surray Bird. Tom Fairweather’s Halifax JP292 was hit by a Dornier night fighter over Serbia, and one of the pilots flying that night, Jack Pogson, recalled seeing the flashes away in the distance as the Halifax (which he had flown with to the dispersal point) came under attack from German night fighters. “They were catching hell”, said Jack, who had moved away from the formation and was heading for his target in Poland. Squadron Leader Bird, in Halifax JP286, had been carrying the four-man DEERHURST Mission, into Hungary, and had safely dropped the agents before being hit by a Messerschmitt night fighter on the homeward leg. The DEERHURST team were to link up with a resistance group north-west of Lake Balaton, and although they were dropped before the aircraft was hit, they landed alongside a Jewish Labour Camp and were rounded up by the guards, who subsequently handed them over to the Gestapo.v They managed to convince the Germans that they were paratroopers and, after interrogation, were sent to a POW camp for airmen, Stalag Luft VIII at Limburg. Two of the men were later killed in an Allied bombing raid on a rail yard whilst being transported by train.vi The bodies of the Fairweather crew, all less than twenty-five years of age, were recovered by German forces and eventually interred in the Belgrade War Cemetery.vii Squadron Leader Bird, aged twenty-four, and his crew are buried in the Budapest War Cemetery.viii
With the move to Brindisi complete, the most pressing problem for the airmen was overcrowding. The priority had been to get the runway serviceable, and the construction of wooden huts by the Italian labour-force was a long way behind schedule. The first arrivals were once again put up in tents and left to construct their own beds from a frame, some wire and mattress material.ix Wireless Technician Roger Alves took a photograph of the tented camp, with his Agfa Billy Zero camera, which captures better than any words the living conditions for airmen on arrival at Brindisi. In an attempt to maintain a basic level of hygiene, airmen were ordered to shake their blankets and put them out in the sun for at least two hours a day and each man was to take responsibility for the cleanliness of his bed space and take it in turns to clean the rest of the floor. The Medical Officer commented, in his Report for February 1944, that “Officers mostly have hired Italians to do the cleaning!”4 The men were rationed to one bath a week and sanitary facilities were very basic, but they were now quite used to a level of discomfort and the temperate Italian climate combined with the proximity of Brindisi town and its ice-cream parlour were a definite improvement. Flying rations however were a sore point with the crew, and in February, the senior medical officer, having had frequent chats with aircrews on the subject, made an official report on the unsatisfactory situation:
Tented Camp at Brindisi taken by Roger Alves
(Photo courtesy of Steve Alves)
“Considering the type of work and the long flying hours, rations are very unsatisfactory as regards quality and quantity. A small packet of biscuits, often stale, small slab of chocolate and a packet of chewing gum, in my opinion, do not constitute sufficient rations for a flight of anything up to eight hours.”
Security was a further consideration as there were still a few unfriendly elements in Brindisi town, and pilfering from the airbase was a constant problem. The men were issued with revolvers for their personal safety and warned to be vigilant, but, despite the difficulties, morale was good. They were delighted to be out of the Libyan Desert, and looked forward to the challenge of new routes and destinations. The Air Ministry had recently ruled that the Squadron was to be known in future as 148 (Special Duties) Squadron, though under no circumstances were the men to mention this in any private correspondence.
When flying recommenced on the 1st February 1944, the Squadron came under 334 Wing, and a change of policy meant that Poland became the top priority, followed by the Italian partisans in northern Italy, and lastly the Balkans,x many of whose supply drops were now being undertaken by the American 62 Group and their shorter-range C47 transport aircraft. Operating from Brindisi would mean a much more efficient supply-run to the Balkans, reducing a seven-hour round trip to Albania to three hours, and extending the range of the Halifax further into the Italian Alps and to Poland. One of the early drawbacks proved to be the single runway, which was very susceptible to strong crosswinds, and a number of aircraft were damaged in the tricky conditions. Despite this, on the first night of operations from the new base, ten of the eleven serviceable aircraf
t set off for Balkan targets, and all but two were successful. The Storey crew destination that first night out of Brindisi was Croatia, and a supply-drop to the GEISHA Mission that was attached to Tito’s partisans. Tito’s presence loomed large during this period and, with Churchill’s direct emissary Fitzroy Maclean attached to his Headquarters, supplies to partisans were given high priority. Tito himself, now Marshal of Yugoslavia, had been forced out of his Jajce Headquarters in January by a German drive and had set up a temporary camp in a the woods en route to Drvar, where he would establish a new base. Fitzroy Maclean, who had been visiting Cairo, returned to the Tito camp at this point, taking with him not only a personal letter from Churchill, but Churchill’s son Randolph. Unable to land at their usual airstrip, which was in the hands of the Germans, they decided to parachute in to Bosanski Petrovac, in Bosnia, and for this purpose two experienced despatchers5 were borrowed from 624 Squadron to help ‘despatch’ the party of seven. They flew in daylight, their Dakota escorted by twelve Thunderbolt fighter aircraft and accompanied by two Italian bombers carrying additional supplies.xi To parachute in during daylight hours and with such an escort was almost unprecedented and emphasised the priority given to the Maclean6 Mission and the high regard in which Tito was held. Churchill delivered a speech the following month to the House of Commons, praising the partisan leader in glowing terms. It was therefore somewhat embarrassing that the BBC continued to call Tito ‘General’, when he had in fact been elevated to ‘Marshal of Yugoslavia’ by the communist-led resistance in November 1943. A signal from Maclean’s Mission in late January 1944 read:
“Why does BBC always call Tito General and not Marshal?”
Followed up three weeks later by:
“Have still received no answer to question
BBC still call Tito General
Can you find whether acting on instructions from F/O [Foreign Office] and if so reason for these instructions.”xii
Tito, in his woodland camp, was more concerned about practical matters – many of his men were marching through the winter snow with nothing but rags wrapped around their feet, and he was naturally preoccupied with the supply of boots so that his men could be mobilised and their hardship eased. A series of exchanges between Cairo and the GEISHA Mission in Croatia between 22nd and 30th January shows the priority given to Tito’s request:
22nd: “Tito has ordered boots with overriding priority above other sorties…”
29th: “Explosives for you are high priority after immediate loads of boots. On specific instructions from Tito, boots RPT boots must be delivered before all else…”
30th “Fully appreciate lack sorties your area. Boots are only priority at moment on Tito’s specific request. We are fixing explosive loads for you as soon as boots are exhausted…”
31st: “Tito’s boot sorties almost cleared then explosives to you top priority…”
So it must have been some relief to the GEISHA Mission when, on the 1st February, the Storey, Fairweather, Edwards and Chalk crews arrived overhead at Zvecevo, near the Hungarian border, with their supplies and the long-awaited explosives. As for the boots, because of a shortage of Allied aircraft, some were dropped by an Italian Savoia-Marchetti bomber, which was in service as an Allied supply aircraft following the armistice. Fitzroy Maclean remembered one of these drops because, along with the boots, the aircraft delivered Andrew Maxwell of the Scots Guards, a personal friend of his, who apparently: “Dropped from a great height, followed by a free-drop of several hundred pairs of boots, which had passed him at high speed, missing him by inches”.xiii Maxwell was lucky on that occasion, but a few months later a member of Basil Davidson’s SAVANNA7 reception group was killed when a sack of boots, free-dropped from a Halifax, thudded down on to him as he waited by the fires.xiv
Balkan targets benefitted from the poor weather conditions during the first two weeks of February because, when sorties planned for the priority targets in northern Italy were cancelled by the Met Officer, all available aircraft were switched to Balkan operations, which was the case on the 10th February when the Storey crew were one of four given a SPINSTER8 supply drop north of the Drin river. The crews were briefed on a primary and secondary target within the same area, the drops being for Wing Commander Tony Neel9 in one valley and for Squadron Leader Arthur ‘Andy’ Hands in a neighbouring valley. Confusion at the reception end of the drop meant that when Neel’s group heard aircraft overhead and raced to the top of the hill to dig their fires from under the snow and get them alight, they found that Hands already had his fires burning and was receiving all the supplies. Things were not much better for the aircraft overhead. The Dunphy crew, the first to arrive, reported being fired on from the ground during the drop and although the Storey and Aldred crews dropped without incident, Warrant Officer Pitt in Halifax JN956, who arrived later, also reported machine-gun fire aimed at his aircraft and abandoned the task. The last crew to take off for this area of Albania was that of Flight Sergeant McGugan, in Halifax JN959, and they did not return. Seven crew members, four of whom were Australian, died that night and are buried at the Belgrade War Cemetery. The only survivor was Sergeant Elkes, who was captured and became a prisoner of war. Unaware of the night’s drama in the skies, Captain John Hibberdine, who, with Neel, had struggled to get the signal fires alight only to wait in vain for supplies, vented his frustration at the day’s events in a diary entry: “We all left the dropping ground in a towering rage. To crown it all, the dog peed under Tony’s bed and Otter (wireless op) was found amid a dismantled wireless set trying to persuade it to work.”xv If they were feeling the strain of the situation it is not surprising; just days later, the Germans moved in and, with the local population turning against them, they were forced to gather what belongings they could and move west, spending the next two weeks on the run.
A crew change in February brought Eddie Elkington-Smith to the crew as bomb aimer and second pilot and, during his introduction to the crew, Tom’s words went something like this: “My crew at the next table know this already, but you are new so let me say to you that, here on the ground I will be a great pal to you, but up there in the sky it is just discipline and discipline again. I will require it and I don’t care what you think of me.” Eddie, himself an old hand having completed twenty-six operations, was unimpressed with the ‘new boy’ lecture and tried to speak, but Tom came back: “Don’t interrupt”, and went on to introduce the crew one-by-one. A bit of playful banter then developed with Walter, the most religious of the group being described by Tom as the ‘closest to God’. To which Walter muttered under his breath: “Well, God even likes policemen”, referring to Tom’s pre-war profession. “Yes, and look at me now”, said Tom. “I used to be a policeman in the Midlands and here I am a volunteer in the service of His Majesty.” Much laughter followed and, with the introductions made, Tom winked at the crew “Come on, let’s get lucky. Time for a drink and I’m buying.”xvi
Tom Storey was probably typical of many Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) pilots who found their way into the bomber squadrons, in that he was a young man who had done well at school and was at the start of his working life with all the optimism and idealism of youth. His dream, on leaving home, had been to make it as a professional footballer, but that didn’t happen and instead, like his father before him, he did the sensible thing and joined the police force as a constable. A posting to Ludlow in Shropshire led him to a new life and to his wife to be, Rita. He played football for the town in his off-duty hours and grew to love his adopted home – a fondness that was reciprocated. He was unusually tall with wild curly hair, sometimes smoothed down with Brylcream, and kind blue eyes. A quietly spoken Cumbrian, he loved football, life, and most of all Rita. They had a song that they sang together. Tom would start and Rita would join in:
“With someone like you, a pal so good and true,
I’d like to leave it all behind and go and find
Some place that’s known to God alone,
Just
a spot to call our own.”
Tom and Rita on their wedding day, July 1943
It was wartime and Ludlow was a town buzzing with the ebb and flow of military personnel stationed nearby. Tom went off to join the RAF in April 1941 and Rita joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force as a wireless operator, proving herself particularly fast and accurate when it came to receiving Morse code messages. So, after initial training in Newcastle, she was posted to the wireless station at Chicksands Priory, where she spent long hours receiving messages to pass to the Bletchley Park code-breaking team. They were both part of the war effort.
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